Colfax Speed Queen – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver December 2025

**Primitive Man performs at the Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest on 12/6, photo by Vanessa Valadez**

Tuesday | 12.02
What: The Home Team: The Crucible of Life Tour w/Arrows in Action and Makari
When: 6:30
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Seattle’s The Home Team is touring in the wake of the release of the deluxe edition of its 2024 album The Crucible of Life. The record is a combination of its post-hardcore roots, R&B and modern alt-pop with the kind of production and electronic elements one would imagine out of that melding of sounds and styles. Also on the bill is Arrows in Action who recently released their new album I Think I’ve Been Here Before (Nettwerk). Since forming in 2017 the group’s fusion of modern rock and pop songwriting with R&B vocals and electronic pop production has garnered a bit of a wide online following. But live the band’s energy and commanding performances are proving it’s more than a studio creation capable of delivering a more visceral version of the slick production of its recordings.

Thursday | 12.04
What:Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Denver pre-fest with Terror Corpse, Vimana and Death Possession
When: 7 doors
Where: Ratio Beerworks 2920 Larimer St.
Why: Decibel Magazine’s Metal & Beer Fest has been pretty reliable for booking some of the most interesting bands in the realm of extreme metal since its inception. This pre-fest event includes performances from Texas-based blackened death metal group Terror Corpse, technical death metal/grindcore band Vimana and the ominous sounds of Denver-based death metal outfit Death Possession.

Friday and Saturday | 12.05 and 12.06
What: Story Of The Year and Senses Fail w/Armor For Sleep
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Two of the better and more popular bands out of that post-hardcore and pop-punk crossover in the early 2000s are sharing the bill on this tour with Senses Fail and Story of the Year. The latter settled on the name in 2002 after forming in 1995 in St. Louis. It’s intricate yet hooky guitar riffs and emotionally charged vocals weaving between emo sensitivity and more distorted screaming meant Story of the Year was in the pocket of a popular style with younger fans of punk looking for something with more edge than the typical pop punk of the day. The band split for a couple of years in 2011 and reconvened in 2013. For this tour you may be able to hear some of the quartet’s forthcoming album A.R.S.O.N..

Blood Incantation, photo by Julian Weigand

Friday and Saturday | 12.05 and 12.06
What: Decibel Metal & Beer Festival Day 1 (12.05) Blood Incantation, Chat Pile, The Red Chord, Panopticon and Castrator, Day 2 (12.06) Acid Bath, Eyehategod, Deadguy, Primitive Man, Conan and Necrofier
When: 6 (12.05) 5 (12.06)
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Decibel Magazine brings to Denver a generous sampling of the best of current extreme metal for a two day festival. Attendees can opt to buy a ticket that includes getting in on the beer varieties being showcased at the event or a mere “Metal Only” pass for just the music. The first night is headlined by Denver-based psychedelic, progressive death metal band Blood Incantation and one might argue also the political noise rock legends Chat Pile. The second night is indisputably headlined by influential and foundational sludge metal group Acid Bath who are reuniting for a handful of shows this year. Also on that night earlier on is Denver’s death grind trio Primitive Man who recently released their latest sprawling epic of an album Observance with its even more pointed and withering commentary on a corrupt and self-destructive society and economic order and even their own part in its continuance.

Sunday | 12.07
What: Wet Leg w/Capture This and Bob Moses (club set)
When: 5
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Wet Leg is the scrappy post-punk/pop band from the Isle of Wight that started garnering a bit of a cult following after the release of its debut single “Chaise Longue” in 2021 followed by the full-length including that song in 2022. The song and the band’s general presentation is frank in its depiction of sexuality but with a wit and charm and undeniable hooks that keep you coming back to listen. The full length was brimming with tales of everyday life delivered with the spirited sass that you would hope would inform the rest of the songs. The group released its sophomore record Moisturizer in 2025 and its own eclectic set of songs delivered on the promise of the debut including lead single “Catch These Fists” about not defaulting to being polite when you get harassed in public places.

Tuesday | 12.09
What: House of Harm w/Past Self and killyouclub DJs
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: House of Harm is a post-punk band from Boston whose sparkling melodies and melancholic vocals could be like any other band out of recent darkwave. But there seems to be a bit more emotional urgency in the singing and keen attention to the electronic end of the soundscapes that drive the music. Past Self is a darkwave/death rock band from Las Vegas with leanings toward more ethereal dream pop.

Friday | 12.12
What: Belly 30th Anniversary of King – 2 sets one night
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Belly Formed in 1991 shortly after Tanya Donelly left influential post-punk band Throwing Muses. She had spent a brief stint in the early version of The Breeders but after 1992 Belly became the singer/guitarist’s main creative focus and the 1993 release of the group’s debut album Star landed the music on regular rotation on MTV during that first great wave of alternative rock. Founding bassist, and former Throwing Muses member, Fred Abong left the outfit a few months after the release of the record to be replaced by Gail Greenwood (who would go on to play in L7 and recently Gang of Four). The new lineup would record the follow up album, 1995’s King. At the time grunge was, in face, king, and the jangle-y, atmospheric power pop of the record meant it didn’t perform as well commercially as its predecessor but artistically it was a step forward into interesting directions. Belly gets the chance to revisit those songs live with you if you show up and there’s a better than average chance that some material from the first record and 2018 album Dove will end up on one of the two sets.

Saturday | 12.13
What: Lawsuit Models, Flutter, Black Dots, State Drugs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lawsuit Models is the kind of modern punk band that clearly has roots in 90s and early 2000s pop punk but didn’t get stuck completely in that sound. But preserved is the best of that music and its relatable yearnings and an ability to take topical cultural references and make them into statements of more enduring human experience and struggle. The rest of this bill is also interesting because Flutter is a great power pop band who seem to have translated an older sound and sensibility into a modern context with a charismatic live show. Black Dots are a veteran punk act from Denver that has also made a transition into a more modern mix of sounds from a pop punk adjacent early sensibility to something more seemingly informed by a touch of Americana and more straight ahead rock. State Drugs come from that stand of punk that as into power pop of the late 80s and early 90s like they listened to the cooler end of The Goo Goo Dolls, Gin Blossoms and Soul Asylum and decided the songcraft in those bands and a knack for a melodic hook and earnest emotional expression was perfectly fine a well of inspiration as any other.

Saturday | 12.13
What: Jorma Kaukonen
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Jorma Kaukonen was one of the members of the classic lineup of Jefferson Airplane. The latter helped define the San Francisco Sound of the late 60s and the early psychedelic rock of the era. Kaukonen came into the group as a blues guitarist who had earlier played a gig with Janis Joplin before either came to anything resembling prominence. The Airplane had hits like “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” and its 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow is a classic of the 60s with songwriting that endures because it was unlike much of anything else in its then realm of rock music. Kaukonen’s instrumental “Embryonic Journey” and its elegantly intricate guitar work brought more than a touch of experimental folk to one of the great psychedelic rock albums of all time. Later in the 60s Kaukonen and some of his bandmates in the Airplane formed Hot Tuna, a group that continues to this day. Somewhere between a psychedelic country blues band and free improvisation outfit, Hot Tuna was a little difficult to pigeonhole though today would be considered on the higher end of the jam band spectrum. Kaukonen has also had an acclaimed solo career in which he can no more easily be classified but in which his energetic and free-flowing finger style guitar and seemingly endless ability to find ways for the guitar to express great feeling with nuance remains. For this tour, possibly the musician’s last on a wide scale at age 84 (soon 85 on December 23) Kaukonen will be joined on stage by heavy hitters R. Carlos Nakai & Will Clipman, David Hidalgo, Jack Casady, Justin Guip, and Ross Garren.

Tuesday | 12.16
What: Silver West (album release and Hali’s birthday) w/Marty Nation and Whitless
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Silver West will release her debut album Ballads of a Heartbroken Hunter at this show. The songwriter/musician is relatively new to performance but has been around music her whole life and as a sound person at various clubs and other live show situations she’s certainly been witness to her fair share of music stories as well as firsthand experience with what works best in a live music format. How much of that shaped her songwriting, hard to say, but surely in the recording there will be an uncommon level of attention to detail and production. But if you’ve seen Silver West there is a compelling vulnerability to her particular style of cosmic Americana that is refreshingly raw and thoughtful.

Thursday | 12.18
What: Takipnik, Lost Relics, Chew Thru and Sungrave
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Takipnik is a Denver-based heavy band that formed in 2019 and recently released its third album Awakened. The record reveals the band has a keen ear for ethereal atmospheric elements mixed in with those more distorted and raging. Think something like Agalloch and Russian Circles and you have an idea what to expect. Lost Relics bridges the gap between extreme metal and noise rock. Some of its members came out of the more interesting end of the Denver stoner rock scene of the 2000s and 2010s and found a way to sharpen the sound some without losing the ability to maintain a solid groove and thus hooks. Chew Thru has more roots in post-hardcore but still has the aggression and knack for a touch of melody that one might expect from a band with influences in 1980s thrash. Sungrave is in the metal universe as well but its sound clearly has some origins in psychedelic rock and the kind of post-metal one heard in the various incarnations of Isis and Neurosis. In moments the shoegaze fusion has Sungrave sounding more like the majestic pastoral side of Jesu.

Friday | 12.19
What: Cheap Perfume, Arson Charge, Gunk! and Cop Killer
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Arguably the punk show of the month headlined by feminist/political punk band Cheap Perfume from Colorado Springs. Its latest album Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask. really does pushes its critique of society and capitalism to new heights and connects the dots in many realms of human life in the intersectional way that the current moment requires. Arson Charge includes former members of Native Daughters, Chieftain and Love Me Destroyer and fronted by SPELLS singer Ben Roy. It’s thrashcore and Roy takes on a different vocal style than you’d expect from him and it’s potent stuff tackling issues related to deeply personal experiences with abuse and the legacy of that for one’s own life in ways that the adult mind is beginning to grapple with. Gunk! Is a like-minded hardcore band from the Springs with a raw, caustic sound. Cop Killer recently released its self-titled EP and it is five tracks of the kind of aggressive hardcore you’d hope with the verbal content you’d hope was there including an updated rework of the Body Count classic.

Salads and Sunbeams, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.20
What: Salads and Sunbeams and Gadget Cats
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Salads and Sunbeams are one of the premier Denver-based indiepop bands. Coming out of noteworthy previous bands Fingers of the Sun and The Pseudo Dates (among others), the band’s songs are literary and steeped in 60s and 70s psychedelic pop but informed by modern experiences in the current socio-economic context. Its songs are tonally colorful and heartfelt and filled with creative storytelling. Gadget Cats are a grunge pop group from Fort Collins whose songs released so far seem to reflect some inspiration from 90s underground punk and indiepop.

Saturday | 12.20
What: Pons w/Bitchflower and Plastik Mystik
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pons is a mutant art punk/neo-No Wave noise rock band from Brooklyn, New York that incorporates classical instruments used in unorthodox ways. Often its songwriting sounds like it’s been influenced by experimental electronic music and left field jazz with splintered, fragmented tempos and imploded structure. Bitch Flower from Fort Collins sounds like it was inspired equally by the most jagged and confrontational punk and dark psychedelic rock like the Stooges and its own blues roots. Plastik Mystic is sort of a strange blend of psychedelic garage rock and something like moody punkers Wipers.

DJ boyhollow aka Michael Trundle of Lipgloss in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 12.31
What: A Lipgloss New Years Eve
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lipgloss has been held at various venues since starting as the prominent indie DJ/dance night in Denver and one of if not the longest running such nights in the country. Currently helmed by longtime DJ Michael Trundle aka boyollow, the night is being held perhaps for the first time at arguably the best small club in Denver, the Hi-Dive. Expect indie hits from the 90s, 2000s, 2010s and now with some sprinkling in of 80s and maybe even 70s music that inspired the music that launched the event.

Wednesday | 12.31
What: Colfax Speed Queen, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver and Glueman
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: If a night of high energy punk is how you want to spend your New Year’s Eve this is the best bet. Colfax Speed Queen is really a psychedelic garage rock band that has made a name for itself in Denver and beyond. But its charismatic and charged performances propel its whole thing into the realm of punk. Jesus Christ Taxi Driver sounds like it came out of the American southeast with its blues-infused rock and roll. But its attitude is definitely adjacent to the irreverent spirit of punk and its live shows are played with a palpable intensity. Glueman these days sounds like its members were inspired by strands of the gloriously frayed and ferocious punk from Memphis, Tennessee from the 80s to now. Just raw and unmindful of a need for clean tonal lines and tapping into some wild energy. If you’re Oblivions you’ll probably be into Glueman.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond May 2025

**Deerhoof performs at The Bluebird Theater on 5/2/25**

Thursday | 05.01
What: YHWH Nailgun w/Morgan Garrett
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: YHWH Nailgun is an experimental rock band from NYC whose deep experimentations with rhythm and texture lends its 2025 album 45 Pounds an industrial intensity and No Wave menace. Mostly percussion and low end frequencies, electronic production and desperate vocals it’s unlike much of anything else going on unless you’re well versed in 2000s left field and industrial post-punk or Orange Milk artists like opener Morgan Garrett who deconstruct rock music to create something daring, strikingly original and whose music stirs the imagination.

Friday | 05.02
What: Deerhoof w/Decollage and Wheelchair Sports Camp
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Across its 31 years of existence Deerhoof has proven that you can have some consistency and still largely reinvent yourself as a band as you absorb and process and shed aspects of influence along the way while building your own world of musical imagination. Every one of Deerhoof’s now 20 full length albums and assorted other releases are worth diving deep into and getting lost in the wonderfully psychedelic pop and noise prog and indie jazz funk or whatever Deerhoof is manifesting in any particular song in a style that sounds like genre collage yet entirely their own. The new record Noble and Godlike in Ruin is refreshingly unlike any of its previous albums except that it plays with familiar elements in new ways while incorporating aspects of cinematic composition and ambient classical at times while embracing noisiness and “imperfections” yet perfect for embodying a unique creative vision that is not in line with any prevailing musical trends meaning Deerhoof does what it wants with consistently fascinating results across the album. Decollage is a psychedelic pop band from Denver in the vein of a more synth-drive of Montreal. Wheelchair Sports Camp is the legendary, experimental, free-jazz inflected hip-hop group from Denver who manage to employ humor in addressing serious social and personal issues without downplaying the impacts of social injustice.

Friday | 05.02
What: Jill Sobule – canceled
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Jill Sobule was born in Denver and made her mark in popular music with the release of her 1995 self-titled album and the hit single “I Kissed a Girl” with a prominent appearance in the film Clueless along with the song “Supermodel” from the same album. The undeniable pop hooks and lighthearted flair made the songwriter’s music of that time popular in the waning days of alternative rock. Sobule’s 1997 follow-up Happy Town found the songwriter experimenting much more with sounds and songwriting styles as well as more overt and sharp social commentary on conservative culture, homophobia and medicated conformity to a society in which “normal” is defined by an outward facing cheeriness. The failure of the record to sell as many as her previous release got Sobule dropped from her label but looking back the artist seems to be completely vindicated as it was clearly a creative success and the music holds up far better than most alternative music of the same time, resonating with themes and expressed in a way still very relevant today. Fortunately, Sobule has continued to release records informed by a poignant personal insight and thoughtful cultural examination. The singer-songwriter will be releasing F*ck 7th Grade, the cast recording of her autobiographical musical of the same name later this spring but at this show you’ll likely get to witness some of that music as well as Sobule’s signature wit and poetic insight. Tragically Jill Sobule passed away on 5/1/25.

Saturday | 05.03
What: Cabaret Grey: Plague Garden, Ronnie Stone, Hex Cassette and Healing
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: This is the official Arcane Vampire Ball (Sunday, May 4, at The Church) pre-party. This event will feature live music from Denver post-punk/deathrock band Plague Garden that recently released its latest album Under the Sanguine Moon. With synth-infused atmospherics and robust guitar sounds, Plague Garden is refreshingly different from the cookie cutter modern post-punk bands with spindly guitar tones. Ronnie Stone & the Lonely Riders made a splash among the synthwave/darkwave synthpop world in 2015 with the Møtorcycle Yearbook LP by sounding not just like some restro synth band but one capable of tapping into that decade’s fusion of styles among pop bands with post-punk and R&B often being in the same mix. Then Ronnie Stone basically disappeared from making new music until 2024’s Ride Again with some more underground rave music sounds as an influence that fans of Nuovo Testamento will appreciate. Hex Cassette is the intense and often hyperkinetic one-man synthwave Satanic cult performance art whose beats are irresistible and enveloping. Healing is the synth punk/EBM dance act from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Chella & The Charm in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 05.03
What: Chella & The Charm w/The Blue Rider and Honey Blazer
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chella & The Charm is releasing its new EP Happy Hour, a celebration of the social connections we take for granted at our usual hangouts and how that camaraderie can help to sustain us in especially rough times. Like now. Like the months and years to come. The situations from which we need a respite even if those times don’t hit us as life changing in the moment. With resonant songwriting and warmly crafted and insightfully observant lyrics, the new EP transcends the Americana realm of music with which the band is most often associated. The Blue Rider is a psychedelic garage rock band in the mold of something from the 1960s but informed by modern, experimental music sensibilities. Honey Blazer taps into 1970s cosmic country and 2010’s psychedelic rock for a sound with a feel like it is coming from hidden oasis of American culture and social infrastructure where people can work minimal jobs and thrive still able to make art and make time for each other aka a place you’d want to visit.

Monday | 05.05
What: LEYA w/Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: LEYA is a Brooklyn-based duo whose music doesn’t fit in neatly into the realms of modern classical and experimental pop because its tonal choices and moods fit a more archaic form of liturgical music with harps alongside ethereal electronic production and falsetto vocals. Its 2024 album I Forget Everything indulges touches of discordant sounds and unsettling moods. Think something like Philip Glass collaborating with Anohni. Denver’s Polly Urethane is pretty much the only artist in the Mile High City that makes sense for this bill with her own heterodox musical styles weaving together classical and medieval composition, industrial ambient, hypnogogic pop and confrontational performance art paired with strikingly commanding vocals.

Wednesday | 05.07
What: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: If you’ve paid attention to modern music for the past four decades plus the name of Nick Cave looms large because of his groundbreaking work with The Birthday Party, Grinderman and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds among other projects. He’s an icon and an enigma whose body of work is consistently rewarding and insightful in the ways the human mind can get caught up in collective mythology and individual obsession, in love and the depths of despair and contemplating the multitude of human experiences. And you’d think this far into his career he might be coasting a little but Cave’s past more than decade of studio albums is among the most creatively realized of his entire career including 2024’s Wild God which unlike his previous three records, deep meditations, seemingly, on despair, loss and rediscovering a will to go on and find meaning and vitality. Some of the latter peeks through in expressions of joy on the new album while never indulging in mere feel good insipidity. Cave is also among the greatest front people to ever do it and worth seeing for that alone.

Wednesday | 05.07
What: LOOLOWNINGEN & The Far East Idiots w/Moon Pussy and Cherry Spit
When: 7:30
Where: Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: LOOLOWNINGEN & The Far East Idiots are a prog-post-punk-art rock band from Tokyo whose sound is an unlikely combination of something like Happy End, Fishmans and an arty psychedelic garage prog group. Denver noise rock luminaries Moon Pussy and Cherry Spit are opening the show so there will be no down side beginning to end.

Saturday | 05.10
What: Jandek
When: 7
Where: Aztlan Theater
Why: Jandek aka Sterling Smith might be described as lo-fi outsider blues whose cult following may not be gigantic but is in itself influential. It’s hard to compare his music to that of other artists because it’s so enigmatic yet accessible. Like something out of a similar stew that spawned Les Rallizes Denudes, The Fugs and the solo work of Skip Spence and Syd Barret. Minimal, spare, haunted and intimate stuff completely unadorned by the kind of commercial ambition that ruins a lot of music. Jandek put out some 36 albums before any documented evidence of a live performance before 2004 but since then has occasionally played unannounced or shows promoted largely by word of mouth or minimal press including a 2008 performance at Denver at The Bug Theater with local musicians in the experimental scene backing his spidery sketches of guitar work and vocals. This might be that or whatever it is it’ll be worth going to see to catch one of the few underground legends left that doesn’t smear the world with self-promoting ego assertion.

Sunday | 05.11
What: Stereo MC’s w/The Casual Sound DJs and guest
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Stereo MC’s aren’t from Manchester but coming about in the second half of the 80s and into alternative music prominence in the early 90s its unique brand of hip-hop and DJ/house/techno culture music sounded in that pocket in their own style. The 1992 hit “Connected’ was ubiquitous at the time and yet has aged a lot better than music of the era that got a ton of airplay with its soulful vocals and irresistible beat and it didn’t hurt that the band had a live drummer. Opening/between sets are The Casual Sound DJs including Tyler Jacobson and Jake Ryan who spin Brit-Pop classics, shoegaze, baggy and likely a heaping of Madchester music too.

Sunday | 05.11
What: Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Seun Kuti is the youngest son of Afrobeat’s biggest star and cultural and political figure Fela Kuti. When Fela passed in 1997 Seun came to lead the band Egypt 80. As a saxophonist, vocalist and activist Kuti has continued his father’s legacy in not only writing uplifting and politically-informed songs he has also been vocal in his support for human rights at home and abroad. This tour is in support of his latest album with the band Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head) produced by Lenny Kravitz with a 2025 deluxe edition coming soon. Live Kuti is a commanding figure who masterfully weaves storytelling with dance and a rich tapestry of live music the demonstrates the continued vitality of the Afrobeat sound and how it has absorbed and influenced other styles across decades.

Monday | 05.12
What: Allison Russell w/Kara Jackson
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Allison Russell is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, poet and multiinstrumentalist from Montreal who has made a name for herself for her emotionally vibrant vocals and keen ear for evocative musical detail and soulful live performances in her bands Po’ Girl and Birds of Chicago and most recently as a solo artist. Russell’s songs frequently take on cultural and psychological binaries and the oppression and destructiveness that people perpetrate in the world and on themselves. Her recent single “Superlovers” with vocal contributions from Annie Lennox is a tender song of yearning for a power of love to help the world to overcome the will to hate, war and genocide and to cultivate the strength to face tough issues with compassion and fortitude.

Magdalena Bay, photo by Lisyelle Laricchia

Tuesday | 05.13
What: Magdalena Bay w/Sam Austins
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Magdalena Bay’s 2024 album Imaginal Disk is a leap forward for the synth pop band. Its tones more lush, its science fiction concepts more fully realized as a fusion of a retro technological object with a human being as a vehicle for self actualization but rejected in favor of embracing one’s humanity and inborn consciousness. The live performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last year revealed a band that had begun to develop its theatrical stage show for tour behind Mercurial World and is now in the realm of a pop band version of those early 1970s Genesis live shows with costumes and ambitious art rock but in this case pop. But the music speaks for itself and the duo’s entrancing melodies and finely crafted arrangements ensure the stage performance enhances well-crafted songs rather than overshadows them.

Tuesday | 05.13
What: Mayday Parade w/Microwave, Grayscale, Like Roses
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Mayday Parade emerged from Tallahassee, Florida in 2005 when Kid Named Chicago and Defining Moment merged and became one of the era’s most noteworthy acts in the realm of pop punk and emo. Its debut album 2007’s A Lesson in Romantics is not just a favorite of fans but an acclaimed pop punk record with anthemic songs about coming of age and the dramatic frustrations that most people experience while they’re still figuring out who they are. The group released its latest album Sweet on April 18, 2025. Currently Mayday Parade is on the Three Cheers for 20 Years tour and performing not just selections from the new album but tracks beloved by its fans and some deep cuts across its career for good measure.

Wednesday | 05.14
What: Beach House w/Cass McCombs (solo)
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Beach House is the well-known dream pop and shoegaze band from Baltimore, Maryland that came up in that city’s fertile indie scene of the mid-2000s before releasing its self-titled debut in 2006. Since then the duo has established a cult following for its intimate sound, expansive melodies and immersive live shows. Even early on when the group was playing small clubs it put in the effort to give those who came a sense of something more than just a band on stage playing songs. Victoria Legrand’s expressive and soulful vocals help to center music that invites listeners to drift into a state of reverie and contemplation. Beginning in 2016 James Barone, a drummer, bassist, producer and engineer based in Denver, joined the Beach House fold and added an element of something different to the band including an expanded rhythmic finesse. The group’s most recent album Once Twice Melody was the first written by all three members of the band and its lush, orchestral beauty makes it one of the most fully-realized of the band’s career to date.

Rilo Kiley, photo courtesy Little Record Company

Wednesday | 05.14
What: Rilo Kiley w/Benjamin Gibbbard
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Rilo Kiley were darlings of early modern indie rock although they mostly played small clubs on early tours including a few shows in Denver at the venerable, legendary and defunct 15th St. Tavern. The earnest and genuinely clever lyrics on the early Rilo Kiley records were a change from a lot of what was happening in rock music of the time because it felt raw and truthful like an unvarnished emotional truth presented in the kind of song that could both make the messaging seem easier to take without watering down the impact. The group continued to refine its songwriting to great effect but then split in 2013. Jenny Lewis of course might be much more well known than her old band at this point but Rilo Kiley announced its reunion in 2025 with a tour including this date at Red Rocks, a venue it was never big enough to command in its first iteration but that is just a testament to its legacy as one of the best indie rock bands in the development of that music into a recognizable form. Opening act Benjamin Gibbard people may know as the singer for some group called Death Cab For Cutie whose own solo career is not short on worthwhile material.

Peter Bjorn and John, photo by Johan Bergmark

Wednesday | 05.14
What: Peter, Bjorn and John
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Peter Bjorn and John are currently touring playing their 2006 landmark album Writer’s Block, the record that basically broke the Swedish trio to an international audience. The songs from the album are about the peaks and valleys of being in a relationship but paired with the kind of noise pop and psychedelic rock that became a core sound of indie rock over the next decade. The hit single “Young Folks” is truly one of the great singles of the 2000s that you’ll still hear in public space playlists and on radio stations that play pop music of the past two decades. Of course the band will perform music from across its fine career but something about Writer’s Block still makes it a standout record of enduring appeal and a testament to the group’s continuing talent.

Thursday | 05.15
What: The Gang of Four w/Colfax Speed Queen
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Gang of Four are the legendary post-punk band from Leeds, UK that alchemically blended funk, punk, conceptual art rock and left politics into a potent blend that was ferocious and had some swing to its angular musical constructions. The classic lineup of Jon King, Hugo Burnham, Andy Gill and Dave Allen produced some of the most memorable and incisive post-punk in the history of that music. That lineup split in 1984 but the band has returned to operation now and then over the years with King, Burnham, Gill and Allen touring extensively again in 2005 and showcasing the raw power of the band and its still relevant and enduring music. This tour is purportedly the group’s last. Gill passed away in 2020 just before the pandemic and Allen died in April 2025. But the group has tapped former L7 and Belly bassist Gail Greenwood and Ted Leo on guitar so not the original or even the version with Dave Pajo but likely worth making it out to see.

Thursday | 05.15
What: Sasami w/Mood Killer
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sasami’s 2022 album Squeeze was a surprise entry of experimental industrial metal for an artist more known for atmospheric indie rock and dream pop. Her new album Blood on the Silver Screen has a title like an even more extreme manifestation of her songwriting. Instead it’s a collection of indie pop explorations of the way love operates in our loves and how deal with various aspects of romantic relationships and the aftermath when it doesn’t work out or not the way we though it would in the beginning. The album feels like the songwriter was capturing the specific headspace and writing a song that would articulate the emotions that course through you.

Panda Bear, Painting by Hugo Oliveira, photography by Fernanda Pereira

Friday | 05.16
What: Panda Bear and Toro Y Moi w/Kassie Krut
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Panda Bear released his new album Sinister Grift in February 2025. Likely the album was written and finalized long before it went public but the title sure does capture the moment and sinking sense of doom and civilization being on the precipice that anyone with any sense of reality and moral conscience has felt for some time but perhaps most acutely now. There is plenty of grift in the American government at the highest levels with too many parts of society getting in on the action and it can feel completely hopeless. The record though it’s deeply melodic and feels like an attempt at musical self soothing it does little to hide a shared feeling of doomerism and trying to hold it together and weather this worst of recent timelines. Panda Bear is perhaps best known for his membership in influential art pop group Animal Collective but his body of work under his own name and in collaboration with the likes of Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 fame has consistently been a rewarding listen and for this tour he co-headlines with foundational chillwave artist-turned-art funk pop artist Toro Y Moi. Both excel at incorporating the multi-media element into the live show so this will likely be a feast for the ears and eyes.

The Black Angels, photo courtesy Partisan Records

Friday | 05.16
What: The Black Angels w/Gift
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Austin’s The Black Angels were early adopters of the style of psychedelic rock that would go on to become more popular in a tamed form in the 2010s. The Black Angels, though, have consistently put out interesting records across its entire career experimenting with form and content and recording methods and themes always with the kind of aesthetic that resonates with its counterculture influences. The band also initiated the Austin Psych Fest which has turned into Levitation championing psychedelic and left field music internationally with remarkable lineups with each iteration of the event. The live shows are a great example of what psychedelic rock can be when the artists lean into the mind-altering possibilities of music rather than aiming for an established genre.

St. Vincent in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

St. Vincent | 05.16
What: St. Vincent w/Black Country, New Road
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: St. Vincent is probably considered by many to be an indie rock artist because her early work was a fine example of what that music could be with some imagination and artistic ambition behind it but even an album like 2009’s Actor was virtually a concept album that explored ideas of identity and the influence of mediated images on culture and the collective psyche. In 2024 St. Vincent released All Born Screaming, a record of uncommon vulnerability in which Annie Clark brought to bear her accumulated songwriting and production skills to craft immersive emotional soundscapes in which she invites listeners to share in a likely resonant experience of living with and honoring heartbreaking loss and finding a way to persevere when one’s world threatens to overwhelm our capacity to do so. Black Country, New Road is the UK band that has found a way to fuse Americana-infused psychedelia with art rock ambition and an ear for production and eclectic sound palettes.

Friday | 05.16
What: INTHEWHALE w/Hellgrammites and Musuji
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This is the final INTHEWHALEshow in Denver. The duo comprised of Nate Valdez and Eric Riley started off in 2010 as a cross between a sludge rock and punk band whose sound anticipated the embrace of 90s grunge and alternative rock in the late 2010s and beyond. The group made a name for itself locally and far afield when they would take short tours every week or every month due to the freedom of their work situations. The raw energy of the band and its knack for writing tuneful rock songs that yes had songs about partying and being young and rocking but also sensitive songs about mental health issues, mortality and the fraught social landscape that is America.

Friday | 05.16
What: Bison Bone EP release w/The Patti Fiasco
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Bison Bone is celebrating the release of its new, 3-song EP Lean with this performance. The new set of songs are about partnerships of various kinds: romantic, friendship and other associations in which commitment enriches the experience for all involved. Courtney Whitehead’s spare yet heartfelt and poetic lyrics are delivered with the essential sentiments emphasized and the style of country rock the band has offered from the beginning is warm, commanding and inviting all at once with performances reflecting and embodying this aesthetic perfectly.

Saturday | 05.17
What: Momma w/Wishy
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: With the release of its fourth album Welcome to My Blue Sky, Momma has, like Wednesday, shown that one can pair raw and resonant tales of everyday life with brashly expansive, deeply atmospheric and transporting melodies. Sparkly and gritty guitar work and introspective but emotionally-charged vocals are at the core of the music but Momma shows a command of processing all of those sounds with creative use of processing and effects with great variety serving perfectly the moment in each song. The video for the title track to the new album was filmed in Yerington, Nevada, a small town that guitarist and vocalist Etta Friedman is from and shows a side of America that many will identify immediately and feel a sense of fond remembrance. Wishy from Indianapolis is a great pairing on the bill with its own shoegaze-adjacent indiepop and touring behind its own new release Planet Popstar.

Saturday | 05.17
What: SPELLLING w/Ramakhandra
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: SPELLLING has been creating orchestral, soulful experimental pop across several albums now including 2025’s Portrait of My Heart. The new album sounds like a glorious, long lost art rock and R&B record of the 1980s but made with modern production sensibilities. Maybe it’s the crunchy power pop style guitar at points and the breezy rhythms reminiscent of something you might hear on a Missing Persons album. But at the center is Tia Cabral’s commanding vocals seemingly unfurling vivid synth washes and beautiful sustained guitar melodies. Opening is art prog psych funk band from Denver Ramakhandra returning after too long a hiatus.

The Effigies, photo courtesy effigies.com

Monday | 05.19
What: The Effigies w/Battle Sights and Shitdrugs
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: The Effigies were one of the earliest of Chicago’s punk bands in a city that was apparently late to adopt that cultural and musical earthquake in the mid-to-late-70s. And from the beginning the band was different. It played with the guitar tones to be more sharp and atmospheric, the rhythms more outside of standard rock ideas and in general despite its aggressive energy was more of a post-punk band in terms of its thoughtful lyrics and sonics. It was more like an American Killing Joke but without the synthesizer. Tragically singer John Kezdy died in a crash while riding his bicycle in 2023 but the group released the final album in 2024 and honoring the legacy with this tour.

Friday | 05.23
What: Florist w/Allegra Krieger
When: 7
Where: The Perplexiplex at Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Brooklyn-based indie folk band Florist released its latest album Jellywish via Double Double Whammy. This time around the songs have a pastoral and at times elegiac quality. The lyrics explore the deep essences of existential meaning and the significance of our lives in themselves separate from the destructive comparisons that we’re encouraged to make by culture. The instrumentation is delicate and spare, mostly acoustic guitar, piano and almost ambient electronic backgrounds with the gentle texture of field recordings. It’s a quiet music that moves profoundly because it trickles into your psyche in the listening.

Friday | 05.23
What: Elephant Rifle, Gaytheist, Almanac Man and Chew Thru
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Elephant Rifle is a noise rock band from Reno, Nevada that combines angular, aggressive energy with mutated atmospheric edges and wonderfully pointed, socially critical lyrics. Gaytheist is the queercore noise rock juggernaut from Portland, Oregon. Almanac Man from Denver is equal parts DC post-hardcore and post-metal sludge with their own brand of harshing on the excesses of late capitalism. Chew Thru from Denver is post-hardcore thrash that definitely sounds like it draws inspiration from late 80s crossover and The Melvins.

Horse Jumper of Love, photo from Bandcamp

Sunday | 05.25
What: Horse Jumper of Love w/Roseville and Precocious Neophyte
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Boston’s Horse Jumper of Love has created for itself a small cult following for its style of slow-moving-dramatic atmospheric art rock. At times moody and intense but always evolving in the tenor of the song, the music of Horse Jumper of Love has been dubbed slowcore but it’s noisier than most of that realm of music and more given to the jagged break into cathartic transcendence. Its latest album 2024’s Disaster Trick includes contributions from Karly Hartzman of Wednesday fame.

Tuesday | 05.27
What: Napalm Death and Melvins
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Napalm Death is of course the foundational, always evolving grindcore band from the UK. Since its 1981 inception as more of an anarcho punk band into darker, starker post-punk the group by the mid-90s had developed an extreme form of guitar rock with blast beats that has proven influential and open enough to influences that the band never got stuck doing the same sound and style endlessly across its career. The group throughout the 90s incorporated elements of death metal, shoegaze, progressive rock and later into the 2000s, industrial aesthetics and all the way Napalm Death has had an especially incisive run of commentary on the state of the world as an anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian band. Melvins have exerted an immense influence after launching itself in the early 80s in 1983 but in Montesano, Washington and carving out the foundations of sludge metal and doom while infusing it all with punk attitude and an irreverent attitude toward standard rock conventions. It influenced grunge and a whole host of stoner rock and extreme metal throughout the 90s but also embraced its own version of experimental music. How many “sludge” bands would cover Throbbing Gristle? And much as Napalm Death every Melvis album is worth a listen because the band has tried something different with every record, and every tour for that matter, to keep itself from getting bored with the music. Its 2025 album Thunderball is more melodic and psychedelic than the band has been in awhile, maybe more than it ever has been without sacrificing the sonic intensity that is the reason one checks in on the band.

Stephen McBean aka Pink Mountaintops, photo from pinkmountaintops.com

Friday | 05.30
What: Still Loud! A Celebration of Michael McGrath featuring Pink Mountaintops, Rowboat, Peter, Paul & Gary and Porlolo
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Michael McGrath is among the best live music photographers ever based out of Denver and one of the most active shooting a broad spectrum of styles and always seeming to capture the choice action shot or dramatic expressiveness of the artists. He captures the essence. With a career spanning at least three decades, McGrath is a constant presence in the photo pit and at clubs and not just as a documentarian but as a fan of the music which is what sets his work apart from other skilled photogs in the field. He was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and under treatment and this show is a fundraiser to help him cover the costs of his treatment and while needing the time off to take care of everything. For this occasion renowned solo psychedelic rock act Pink Mountaintops will perform as well as Denver artists such as experimental folk/psychedelic rock band Rowboat and indie rock phenoms Porlolo.

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble in 2023 including Mark Mosher

Friday and Saturday | 05.30 and 05.31
What: Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival
When: 6:30
Where: Founders Hall of the Center For Musical Arts
Why: The Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival focuses on artists that combine music, multi-media/multi-disciplinary presentation and innovative theoretical practice. This year’s edition includes performances across two nights. On Friday night there is Ian Hatcher, L’Astra Cosmo and Shapes of Emergence.
Saturday will feature once again Ian Hatcher but with Spices Peculiar, Mark Mosher, Jason & Debora Bernagozzi. Mark Mosher is one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Synth Meet-Up and this year his show is titled “Beautiful Tomorrows: Temporal Odyssey” that blends techno music and this usual dazzling synchornized visuals representing four months of work set in a fictional temporal theme park with journeys inspired by classic science fiction television programs. For more information on the festival and other artists on the bill for both nights, visit the link above.

Saturday | 05.31
What: Ministry (Twitch and With Sympathy) w/My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and Die Krupps
When: 6:30
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: For years Al Jourgensen said he would never perform Ministry music previous to The Land of Rape and Honey but in recent times he’s let up on that restriction and this tour will include live versions of music from the first two albums. But you also get to see bands who were pivotal to the growth and development of industrial music as we know it in the campy-yet-charismatic and colorful My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and German industrial and EBM pioneers Die Krupps.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond February 2024

**Tigercub performs at The Fillmore Auditorium on February 22 2024, photo by Andreia Lemos**

Friday | 02.02
What: Honey Blazer w/The Blue Rider, Ryan Wong Band and Soulfax DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This will be an evening of bands who have drawn upon some of the essence of the songwriting prowess and musicianship of 70s era rock where psychedelia and Americana blurred some lines. Honey Blazer’s 2022 album Lookin Up revealed a knack for channeling that lush and chill Laurel Canyon country rock and weirded it up some with layers of atmosphere and texture expressed as entrancing pop songs. The Blue Rider’s vibe is more like unhinged garage rock in that 60s mode but driven in part by analog synth weirdness. Ryan Wong Band sounds like Wong himself went on a retreat and took in the entire catalog of 70s country and injected it with some of the cosmic strangeness of Townes Van Zandt.

Saturday | 02.03
What: The Disassociation of Aaron Dooley, Yard Art and Psilocyborne
When: 9
Where: Roxy on Broadway
Why: Aaron Dooley is perhaps better known for his membership in Denver shoegaze greats Totem Pocket. But in 2023 he put out an album called The International Disassociation of: Aaron Dooley that is like a combination of prog rock, psychedelia and free jazz so this is going to be something a little different. Yard Art’s own alchemy of progressive rock, psych and freak folk will fit in with the night. The name Psilocyborne kind of tells you what that band might be about.

Saturday | 02.03
What: Flesh Tape and Fainting Dreams album release w/Dry Ice
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: This is a dual album release show from Flesh Tape and shoegaze/dream pop/emo group Fainting Dreams. The latter dropped its latest release Those Left Untouched By the Light on January 12 but this is the official unveiling of the album. Anyone that saw the band early in 2023 or in 2022 saw the more dream pop side of the songwriting from Elle Reynolds but recent performances have been more in the vein of tribal noise rock with expansive guitar atmospherics for something refreshingly original that fans of Kansas City noise rockers Flooding will truly appreciate.

Wednesday and Thursday | 02.07 and 02.08
What: Twin Tribes w/Urban Heat and Vandal Moon
When: 7:30/8 and 7
Where: Fox Theatre (02.07) and Oriental Theater (02.08)
Why: Twin Tribes is one of the most prominent darkwave/post-punk artists in America at the moment. Hailing from Brownsville, Texas, the duo’s richly synth-driven music offers not just tales of the usual rock and roll subjects but informed by the occult and esoteric subject matter that blurs the line between the supernatural, the romantic and a style of science fiction that incorporates elements of Gothic literature. Currently touring in support of its 2024 album Pendulum. Austin’s Urban Heat’s style of post-punk is more steeped in EBM but graced with frontman Jonathan Horstman’s commanding baritone vocals. Vandal Moon is a darkwave band from Santa Cruz, California whose sound seems rooted in a coldwave version of early 80s synth pop with some clear influence from Depeche Mode and Duran Duran.

Thursday | 02.08
What: Chance Peña w/Hayd
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Rising folk pop artist Chance Peña is a bit of a music industry veteran at age 22 having worked in making music for film and TV as well as contributing to the work of other artists as with John Legend’s “Conversations in the Dark” from his 2020 album Bigger Love. Peña’s latest EP Lovers to Strangers (2023) with lead single “In My Room” dropped in the summer but has major fall energy with its melancholic yet emotionally effusive and vulnerable melodies and tales of life as a thoughtful young person in this very challenging and conflicted period in our culture.

Friday and Saturday | 02.09 and 02.10
What: Cold War Kids 20 Years Tour w/HOVVDY
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Cold War Kids is celebrating its 20 years together as a band with this tour in the wake of the release of its tenth, self-titled, album in 2023. After a trilogy of albums called New Age Norms (1-3 respectively) from 2019-2021 and its topical subject matter examining developments in society and culture with the group’s typically blues-and-soul-infused indie rock flair, the new album feels more like a set of power pop songs but with the same uplifting energy and thoughtful lyrics that has garnered the band its sizable following. Also on board for this tour is Austin-based indie pop group HOVVDY whose own self-titled album is set for release on April 26, 2024. The duo of Charlie Martin and Will Taylor are no strangers of utilizing electronic elements and aesthetics into its sound and performances but the advance singles from the new album sound like the guys have been listening more to some hip-hop production and incorporated beat-making into their songwriting in a way that just expands its evocative range and nuance of composition. It’s a creative development that frankly sets the group apart from many of its would-be brethren in indie music generally especially in the particular way they have utilized the new sound palette. Should be interesting to see how they pull it off live.

Saturday | 02.10
What: The Kills w/The Paranoyds
When: 8
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Kills have reliably produced hard rocking music of great imagination and creative production since its earliest days and the live shows always never skimping on the passionate performances. The duo’s new album God Games (2023) is yet another flavor of the group’s alchemy of rock and electronic music with some of its more gloriously moody and sonically enveloping pieces of its career. The Paranoyds from Los Angeles has been one of the more interesting punk-adjacent post-punk bands of recent years with its noisy guitar rock and mutant synth freakouts sounding like a band that could have been on both Kill Rock Stars and GSL Records.

Dressy Bessy in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.10
What: Dressy Bessy w/Barbara, The Raton 3 and Bad Boy Bug
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dressy Bessy are the reigning legends of Denver indiepop with roots back to its formation in the 90s including then current and former members of The Apples in Stereo and Sissy Fuzz. These days the group is as vital as ever with live shows that are as joyously unhinged in the best tradition of great rock and roll but with catchy hooks and heartfelt lyrics. The Raton 3 is a band that includes Deborah Iyall who some may remember as the lead singer of New Wave legends Romeo Void perhaps best remembered for the iconic single “Never Say Never.” Raton 3 is more like psychedelic indiepop with a tender spirit and the kind of frayed edges you wish you heard more in pop music generally.

Wednesday | 02.14
What: Midwife w/American Culture, Cherished and Water on the Thirsty Ground
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Midwife’s ambient folkloric shoegaze that she dubs “heaven metal” is awash in a tenderly cosmic insight into human frailty and vulnerabilities that manifest as deeply atmospheric songs that hit like direct doses of emotional catharsis and transcendence. American Culture is an evolving rock band whose roots in indiepop and punk lands in always interesting and unique places so it’s never quite fit into some trendy subgenre insipidity. Cherished is like if a raw emo band fused with a shoegaze band that came out of punk but with more focused chops. Water on the Thirsty Ground might be different now but it’s experimental, industrial-inflected, noisy glitchcore has to be taken on its own terms of its own unfiltered emotional exuberance.

Friday and Saturday | 02.16 and 02.17
What: Yo La Tengo
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater (02.16) and Washington’s (02.17)
Why: Yo La Tengo delivered one of the best records of its career with 2023’s This Stupid World in which it pushes the boundaries of its pop aesthetic and further into its knack for epic, expansive noise rock. The veteran band has always steered its own course and carved out a unique place as a foundational indie rock band whose sounds have waxed into the realms of Krautrock, space rock, noise, jazz, warmly rendered shoegaze and folk pop with a consistently evocative creativity and imaginative sonics. Live the group has also been pretty reliable as being able to manifest its most delicate songcraft and its roaring burns of rock theater.

Friday and Saturday | 02.16 and 02.17
What: Sarah Jarosz w/The Ballroom Thieves
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre (02.16) and Boulder Theater (02.17)
Why: Sarah Jarosz released her new album Polaroid Lovers on January 26, 2024. The now Nashville-based, Austin, Texas born singer-songwriter garnered a sizable following with her more Americana flavored songwriting and delicately expressive vocals and lushly pastoral aesthetic. Her songs have always seemed to be informed by poetically observant lyrics that are vividly rendered emotional experiences and expressed in ways that are refreshingly free of clichés. The new record finds Jarosz building upon her mastery of the use of space and minimalism in her songs with deeper forays into electric sounds and soundscapes without sacrificing the aspects of her songs that feel intimate and brimming with great personal insight.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, photo from Bandcamp

Tuesday | 02.20
What: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs w/Space in Time and Cheap Perfume
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The band aka Pigs x 7 is a psychedelic doom band from the UK whose musical momentum is almost the opposite of what one most often associates with the current equivalent of stoner rock. Like a weird fusion of Neurosis and Sleep and with a quality that makes you think maybe people in the band were in hardcore groups prior to this. Its latest album Land of Sleeper blends sonic aggression with warped atmospheres and a cathartic treatment of existential dread. Space in Time is the long-running boogie rock/psych doom band from Denver who seem like the idea opening act for this show. Cheap Perfume is the political punk band from Colorado Springs whose joyful takedowns of misogyny and right wing ideology as it manifests in the culture are thrilling because they are creatively and poignantly on point.

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, photo from Bandcamp

Wednesday | 02.21
What: Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: After Kristin Hayter shelved the arresting avant-garde/classical/noise project Lingua Ignota after a lengthy tour in 2023, the artist had announced a new musical direction with Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter and an album SAVED! Which dropped in October of the same year. It’s a collection of songs that document Hayter’s, according to the blurb on the Bandcamp listing, “earnest attempt achieve salvation through the tenets of charismatic Christianity, focusing on the Pentecostal-Holiness Movement, which dictate that one’s closeness to God is demonstrated through transcendental personal experience.” So it’s a similar experience as what Hayter seemed to be doing with Lingua Ignota and with similar musical methods and sounds but fusing her original music with traditional hymns. Given Hayter’s unique performance style and emotional commitment to the concept as a vehicle for personal transformation it will likely be quite the thing to witness.

Wednesday | 02.21
What: Provoker w/Riki and Candy Apple
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Provoker is a post-punk band based in Los Angeles with roots in the musical scores of horror cinema with brooding and low-end robust synth, driving bass lines and soulful vocals. A lot of current post-punk has a spindly lo-fi sound and Provoker is in sharp contrast to that with lush production and a refreshingly richness of tone. Opening the show is the noisy post-punk/post-hardcore trio Candy Apple and Riki. The latter is hopefully due for a new album this year but either way her moody synth pop is like a musical time travel journey to a time and place that doesn’t exist where the 1980s didn’t end and bands could pick up where Depeche Mode left off with Speak & Spell and picked up a bit of Kim Wilde and baked it into modern minimal dance pop.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Circling Over w/Weathered Statues, Summer of Peril and Mood Swing Misery
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Circling Over is a dark post-rock band from Denver in that heavy shoegaze vein. Weathered Statues is probably the best death rock band in Denver at the moment with poignantly evocative vocals and dense yet dynamic rhythms that set it apart from the often sonically thin music rampant in modern post-punk. Summer of Peril calls itself “grungegaze” but its musical output so far sounds like that end of emo that wasn’t trying to adhere too closely to the punk roots and went for pure emotional expression through crafting vulnerable, atmospheric sounds to process melancholic moods.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Porno for Pyros farewell tour w/Tigercub
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Porno for Pyros is an alternative rock band that formed following the 1991 dissolution of Jane’s Addiction when frontman Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins brought on board Peter DiStefano and Martyn LeNoble for a group with similar sensibilities and knack for unconventional melodies and sophisticated rhythms. The songs that would emerge on the band’s 1993 debut album were more chill and experimental in sound palette than Farrell and Perkins had employed with Jane’s and more psychedelic but maintained a sense of otherworldly mystique that surrounded the music and image of their previous band. The group remained active until 1998 and has had reunion performances since then in the 2000s and 2020s (before the pandemic botched an initial attempt at a reunion and release of new material to support). In 2023 founding bassist Martyn LeNoble announced his amicable departure from the band with his supportive words for the as yet unreleased music aside from the “Agua” single but former member, and punk legend, Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE, Dos, mssv, Stooges etc.) agreed to return for this final run of live shows assuming the band doesn’t decided to do performances in support of what one hopes is a final release of the recordings done with LeNoble.

Tigercub is a rock band from Brighton, England that formed in 2011 by vocalist and guitarist Jamie Stephen Hall and drummer James Allix who met a university and joined by bassist Jimi Wheelright in 2012. From its earliest releases the trio has demonstrated a knack for crafting commanding hard rock with a cinematic sensibility that it has consistently evolved into a body of work that has expanded its range and variety of expression across now three albums including arguably its most fully realized work to date with 2023’s The Perfume of Decay. The group’s 2021 album As Blue as Indigo delved deep into themes of anxiety, depression, mortality and loss. The latest release found the band exploring the use of found tapes that Hall had been collecting from old Dictaphone machines found in thrift stores as a layer of atmosphere that served as almost a sonic canvass upon which its hard rocking sound could find a subtle context. It’s a subtle effect but for the keen listener there’s a certain something to the music on the record that lends it an emotional impact like a well chosen setting and time of year can add something unmistakable and compelling to a film.

For the new album some of the themes of the previous offering linger as emotional fallout and reflecting the kinds of experiences we all go through when we’ve been through a particularly traumatic period and have to return to going through the usual daily experiences with a different emotional lens having been changed by grief and existential turmoil. For the new record the group seems to have taken in the influence of early shoegaze and Can in terms of working out the underlying moods and atmospherics and challenging themselves to produce something another level of creative ambition with its arrangements. You can hear the impact of Queens of the Stone Age in its fluid use of heavy guitar and rhythms but in its perhaps not as obvious ear for the aesthetics of electronic music and in the structure of where the sounds sit in the mix one might compare Tigercub to Failure whose own fusion of hard rock, post-punk and the influence of cinematic sound design has yielded its own career of noteworthy records. Listen to our interview with Hall for the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Spectral Voice album release w/Mephitic Corpse and Street Tombs
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Denver-based death metal/doom band Spectral Voice is celebrating the release of its new record Spargamos with a these days rare performance in town at The Bluebird. The new album expands on the group’s claustrophobic, dark, atmospheric, grinding and caustic sprawl. It hasn’t sounded like some black metal aficionados recording in their bedroom or garage in awhile and that might put off purists but now its darkly cosmic sound just hits with an enveloping spirit of desolated awe in the face of the possibilities of existence beyond our mortal ken. Spooky but never corny.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Gig for Gaza w/Time/Calm., Church Fire, Stay Tuned, Team Nonexistent and Damn Selene
When: 6:30
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Probably everyone you know to the left of center and at this point even people who think of themselves in the political center in America have been critical of the response of Israel to the October 7, 2023 attacks of Hamas. Dropping more bombs in a shorter period of time on a much smaller land than America did in all of the Iraq War with the supposed aim of rooting out an organization that is often cited as a terrorist organization in the West seems like a genocidal war crime to anyone that isn’t buying into warhawk propaganda. When an election hasn’t been allowed since 2007 and the majority of the population of Gaza and the West Bank in general wasn’t born at that time or an even vaster number at most children it seems obvious that holding them accountable in such a barbaric fashion for the acts of a political party acting rashly in response to horrible conditions imposed on their people should be condemned and de-funded by the rest of the world. Until then independent methods of aiding the people of Gaza have been organized including this event. When world leaders especially those in the USA work to end this conflict and others around the world maybe these sorts of events don’t need to happen to raise funds and highlight atrocities. Fortunately all the acts on this bill are worth seeing beyond any political activism.

Sweeping Promises, photo by Shawn Brackbill

Saturday | 02.24
What: Sweeping Promises w/Colfax Speed Queen and Angel Band
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A time not so long ago Lawrence, Kansas was known for great, underground indie rock if you were plugged into the DIY circuit. But like all college towns phases of who is around and active changes as the demographics change. So to hear about Sweeping Promises releasing their sophomore album Good Living Is Coming For You on both Feelt It and SubPop came as a bit of a surprise. The duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug got their start in bands together n the late 2000s while at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas and then being involved in the Boston underground scene forming, according to Grant Sharples in a July 2023 profile on the band in Pitchfork, Sweeping Promises in 2019 after trying out different styles of music as Silkies, Dee-Parts and Mini-Dresses. In 2021 the group found a place in Lawrence near University of Kansas where Schnug has set up a studio and already recorded numerous bands. The new record is reminiscent of the kind of thing you might have heard on Kill Rock Stars or K Records in the 90s or out of Athens, GA in the 80s and 90s with punk rock spirit, pop accessibility and lo-fi charm. So if you missed the band when it was in town in September 2023 this is your chance to rectify that as well as catch local psych garage greats Colfax Speed Queen and Angel Band.

Monday | 02.26
What: Militarie Gun w/Pool Kids, Spiritual Cramp and Roman Candle
When: 6
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based post-punk band Militarie Gun has garnered a bit of cachet for itself with its exuberant live shows and music that taps post-hardcore and noise rock roots for its own melodic manifestation of the synthesis of those influences. In 2023 the group released the anthemic Life Under the Gun and toured extensively in support of the album and now with another swing through Denver in the wake of the release of its new EP Life Under the Sun which is much more minimal versions of songs from the aforementioned record and not so obviously grounded in punk with lush atmospheres and contributions from Bully, Mannequin Pussy and Manchester Orchestra.

Small Black in 2010 at Rhinoceropolis, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 02.27
What: Small Black w/NITE
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Small Black were pioneers of the chillwave sound, although it never embraced the genre tag because its own music was more in line with experimental, DIY electronic weirdos like Pictureplane and drawing inspiration from early synthpop which was making up its style as it went and incorporating noise and generating its own aesthetics, when it formed in the late 2000s and its 2010 debut album New Chain a classic of the genre. But that music was surpassed in development and sophistication by its 2013 record Limits of Desire which got a double vinyl deluxe reissue for its 10 year anniversary in 2023. For this tour you’ll probably get a bit of those older flavors of its music as well as its even more lush and R&B inflected newer material.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2022

Enumclaw plays Globe Hall 11.3 and 11.4, photo by Colin Matsui

Jeffrey Lewis, photo from artist Bandcamp

Tuesday | 11.01
What: Jeffrey Lewis w/Gila Teen and Emily Frembgen
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Jeffrey Lewis is a cartoonest best known for his long running Fuff series (formerly Guff) and one of the leading lights of what some music commentators have dubbed the “antifolk” movement of the 1990s and 2000s. What that means in practice is very lo-fi sometimes folk-punk songs that are stories from everyday life of an unvarnished honesty that fans of artists like Daniel Johnston, Wolf Colonel and Moldy Peaches will appreciate for how it makes few concessions to commercial music convention in the songwriting, the raw performances and in the released recordings. But there’s something real and emotionally resonant that feels like something that isn’t mass produced the way a lot of commercial pop and non-pop music lending the music a quality that isn’t just vital but life-giving. Similarly-minded formerly Colorado-based, experimental folk pop artist Emily Frembgen is on the bill as is the post-punk/avant-emo/heart-on-sleeve weirdo pop duo Gila Teen.

Mercyful Fate promo photo (1980s) by Ole Bang, photo from mercyfulfatecoven.com

Tuesday | 11.01
What: Mercyful Fate w/Kreator and Midnight
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Mercyful Fate was a band that was part of the first wave of black metal during its initial run from 1981-1985. Fronted by King Diamond, a theatrical vocalist whose operatic vocals meshed well with the progressive, melodic guitar work and with its sinister stage presence the group exerted a massive influence on thrash and death metal on the musical level and in terms of aesthetics and the subject matter of its lyrics. Its first two albums Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath are rightfully considered genre standouts. It might be said that the outfit sounded like an evil version of Judas Priest but its songwriting was markedly different with progressive rock roots more obvious. After Mercyful Fate split in 1985 King Diamond went on to a respectable and arguably equally influential career with a band under his name. But from 1993 and onward the band has spent periods reunited, releasing new material along the way. It’s just fortunate that this show is happening on the Day of the Dead with thrash legends Kreator also sharing the stage.

Polly Urethane in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 11.01
What: Sloppy Jane w/Niis and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sloppy Jane is a post-punk band from Los Angeles whose 2021 album Madison is an orchestral and baroque pop affair more akin to something in the realm of a 2000s chamber pop band than its earlier sound, a raw, dark punk sound. Founded by Haley Dahl at age fifteen the group’s 2015 debut EP Sure-Tuff sounds like hours of absorbing Hole, Lydia Lunch and early death rock and moving onto the realm of underrated art punk bands like Mika Miko. In the early years of the band a bassist named Phoebe Bridgers added to the mix before moving on to an acclaimed singer-songwriter career of her own and establishing Saddest Factory, the label that is home to Madison. Niis, also from Los Angeles, sounds founded on similar roots as Sloppy Jane but with a more cutting and fuzzy sound yet the same kind of emotionally stirring and ragged exuberance. Its cover of Elastica’s “Connection” from its 2020 Not Niis EP captures the unhinged spirit of the original in a more punk mode. Opening act Polly Urethane combines an elemental kind of performance art with eruptive emotional energy with the elegance of classical music sensibilities and distills it into an unforgettable live show that feels like anything could happen.

Magdalena Bay photo by Lissyelle Laricchia

Wednesday | 11.02
What: Magdalena Bay w/BAYLI
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Magdalena Bay is a synth pop duo based out of Los Angeles. Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin met while in high school as part of a music program but formed their own progressive rock band before forming the current project in 2016. With some early releases under its belt, Magalena Bay dropped its debut full length Mercurial World in October 2021 but haven’t been able to properly tour in support of the album until now. The album like the group’s website taps into some retro aesthetics and uses them in a self-aware but creative new ways. The website mercurialworld.com looks like an old Geo Cities website and all across the record one hears sampling of 8-bit sounds that give it a touch of grit while perhaps invoking the sounds of artists like Charli XCX and the original Crystal Castles. Opening act BAYLI recently released her Stories 2 EP and lead single “act up” and the attendant music video presents a complex and nuanced take on relationships and identity and the ways we interact with the world around us. Its sultry vibes and synth infused R&B sound isn’t so easily defined by narrow genre designations as its themes utilize a strong but gentle pop hook that renders it possible to accomplish in under three minutes what an entire movie can often fail to accomplish with nearly as much grace and poetry.

Thursday and Friday | 11.03 and 11.04
What: Illuminati Hotties w/Enumclaw and GUPPY
When: 7 (11.03) and 8 (11.04)
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Enumclaw’s new album Save the Baby is an update on its raw and vulnerable sound somewhere on the outer fringes of an unlikely alchemy of post-punk and emo. The band has always been adept at building an inspired imperfection into its songwriting in a manner similar to what Dinosaur Jr has done since its own inception. The emotional core is what hits the hardest and the vocals are a little rough around the edges but seem to somehow fit the moment perfectly. For the new record Enumclaw has refined the raw power of Jimbo Demo and tightening the dynamics without sacrificing the unvarnished feel of the music that made it so appealing from the beginning. It’s fairly rare that someone more or less begins their music career as a recording engineer but that’s what Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties did before she got her musical project off the ground in 2017. In 2021 Illuminati Hotties released its second album Let Me Do One More and reaffirmed the project’s status as expert purveyors of punk infused pop hooks and imaginative song titles and subjects like “Threatening Each Other re: Capitalism” and “Joni LA’s No. 1 Health Goth.” Fortunately, the songwriting is fully capable of embodying the implied social critique with the meta humor one would hope to hear. GUPPY from Los Angeles somehow makes delicate guitar work and twee sensibilities come off as punk and its 2022 album Big Man Says Slappydoo has enough pop culturally aware irreverent humor to seal its punk bonafides.

Friday | 11.04
What: Cuffed Up w/Shadow Work and Wiff
When: 6/6:30
Where: HQ
Why: Cuffed Up from Los Angeles came together in 2018 inspired in part by the post-punk coming out of Ireland and the UK in the 2010s. Acts like Fontaines DC, IDLES and Shame set a template of politically conscious rock music with a personal immediacy set to a headlong pace and imaginative, atmospheric guitar work and impassioned vocals. With two EPs under its belt including the 2020 self-titled and 2021’s Asymmetry, Cuffed Up is proving itself to coming to be worthy of its influences. This is a bit of a one-off show in Denver hinting that maybe Cuffed Up is working with a local producer or album mixer but whatever the reason for this jaunt from California it’s a rare opportunity to catch the band before it becomes the subject of much buzz.

Friday | 11.04
What: Os Mutantes w/Claude Fontaine https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/435716
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Fitting that legendary and influential Brazilian psychedelic rock and Tropicália band Os Mutantes are touring in the wake of its home country’s recent election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aka Lula to the presidency over his fascistic opponent former president Jair Bolsonaro. The band was associated with the dissident movement in the late 1960s during the then Brazilian dictatorship so it’s playful and otherworldly music had a subversive element and a soundtrack to a countercultural moment. Its 1968 self-titled album is a bonafide classic of world psychedelic music and Os Mutantes had a bit of an international following before splitting in 1978. The band reunited in 2006 and has been touring on and off since and having released three new albums following that reconvening operations.

Friday | 11.04
What: Hi-Dive Anniversary Night 1: The Spits, Zebroids, Colfax Speed Queen, Townies
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Hi-Dive has been operating since early November 2003 and will celebrate the occasion with two nights of shows including this oe with the garage punk legends The Spits, punk rock tricksters Zebroids, psychedelic garage phenoms Colfax Speed Queen and Townies, a band of Denver expatriates to Trinidad who have an element of humor at the core of its identity of the band despite having serious rock songwriting chops and musicianship.

Of Feather and Bone, photo by Alvino Salcedo

Saturday | 11.05
What: Hi-Dive Anniversary: Warthog, Of Feather and Bone, Candy Apple and Spiritual Poison https://hi-dive.com/event/warthog-of-feather-and-bone-candy-apple-tba
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Hi-Dive Anniversary festivities continue for a second night with veteran, NYC thrash crossover quintet Warthog, psychedelic death metal legends Of Feather and Bone, noise rock/hardcore trip Candy Apple and Ethan McCarthy’s other noise project, the more ambient and orchestrated sound environment Spiritual Poison.

Saturday | 11.05
What: Kevin Morby w/Coco https://www.gothictheatre.com/events/detail/?event_id=427528
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Kevin Morby came to prominence in experimental folk group Woods when he was living in NYC in the mid-2000s and then with his band The Babies with Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls. But once he moved to Los Angeles he firmly established his solo career with the 2013 debut album under his own name, Harlem River, a record paying homage to his former home city. Morby’s creative arrangements transcend specific music styles so that when you hear his music its the songwriting that catches your attention more so than trying to frame it into a stylistic context. Maybe its his attention to rhythm and structure with texture in the flow of melody like he listened to a lot of mid-70s Sly & The Family Stone, Devendra Banhart and the breadth of Bob Dylan’s output. His latest album This Is a Photograph is his most thematically and emotionally direct album to date and its pastoral introspection doesn’t feel like a pose or pretense but rather a vehicle at illuminating honest and deeply observant personal insights. Opening act Coco released its self-titled debut album in 2021 and the project includes Maia Friedman (of Dirty Projectors, Uni-Ika Ai), Dan Moland (Lucius, Chimney) and Oliver Hill (Pavo Pavo, Dustrider). There is a great use of space in which the group casts sultry moods and soulful soundscapes to accompany gorgeously melodic and warm yet lonely vocal harmonies. It’s the kind of slowcore pop one might expect more out of Low when that band isn’t going fully into gloriously avant-garde mode. The elegant bass lines and and a willingness to let the physicality of the performance of the music to leak into the recording gives it an immediacy and grounding that matches the tenor of the way the musicians sync so perfectly with their voices.

Sunday | 11.06
What: Cloakroom w/Seer Believer and Cherished
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cloakroom’s 2022 album Dissolution Wave might be seen as a Utopian concept space rock album about creating a parallel new world to process and replace the world as we know it with all its environmental degradation, political and social decay, oligarchic domination and the commodification of all levels of our lived experience. It’s like a western doom record with the core idea being a technology, the generator of the titular energy, that obliterates all existing creative work and abstract thought including all ideologies, philosophy and much of what we take for granted as the foundations of our civilization. Except there is “the Spire and Ward of Song” that filter human imaginative accomplishments so that only the best ideas and creations can get through and fuel the continuation of the world. The album also finds the band branching even further into melodic accessibility with broad vistas of dream-like pop hooks drifting in distorted haze and sheets of discordant tones. The effect is mutually complementary. It’s also among the best shoegaze albums out of the past decade and the perfect blend of dense atmospherics and transporting tonal drifts. Opening are Denver shoegaze bands Seer Believer and Cherished, the latter being a group that seems to fit in well in this realm of music as well as post-punk for its vibrantly vulnerable moods.

Monday | 11.07
What: Patriarchy w/Street Fever and Sell Farm, Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Patriarchy is currently touring in support of its 2022 album The Unself and proving itself purveyors of a sound that perhaps has some roots in Gothic industrial sounds and saturated synth tones and a darker form of dance music. Fronted by Actually Huizenga, the group’s aesthetic perfectly blends the hyper real, stark visual style of 80s slasher films, Giorgio Moroder’s cinematic compositions, David Lynchian noir and both ancient and modern mythology for its performance style and the content of the music. It’s a band that embraces the theater of camp and its exploration of themes about sex and power in society and personal relationships is provocative and thought-provoking while delivering a bombastic and challenging music that is also danceable and joyous in its catharsis.

Tuesday | 11.08
What: Echosmith w/lostboycrow and Band Of Silver
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Echosmith is a pop band that formed in 2009 in Chico, California. The former and current quartet are siblings Sydney, Noah, Graham and Jamie Sierota (Jamie having taken a break from the band from 2016-2022). Adopting the moniker when the group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2012 (previously having performed under the name Ready Set Go!), Echosmith released its debut album Talking Dreams in 2013 which yielded the hit single “Cool Kids” about not really fitting in with the popular crowd but being comfortable with being different. Following the performance and touring cycle behind the debut album on a major label, Echosmith found itself saying yes to every opportunity to advance the band and listening to industry people in helping to further their career and that meant long term that there wasn’t enough time to write and develop new material aside from an occasional EP until the group took steps to do so in time to issue the sophomore album Lonely Generation in January 2020. With the onset of the pandemic and the enduring and continuing impacts on tour and thus supporting a new record Echosmith had time to reassess its priorities and reconnect with the ideas and inspirations that initially got the group off the ground into a serious project and during that process went with a more open approach to its songwriting as heard on new singles “Hang Around” and “Gelato” hinting at the new chapter of Echosmith’s creative development. Recently “Cool Kids” garnered some renewed interest when it was used in TikTok videos by the likes of Demi Lovato, Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Addison Rae and Hayley Kiyoko who felt the song expressed their own feelings about looking back and seeing how far they’ve come as people. The trend of utilizing the song has garnered more than six million views to date. Echosmith in response to that did a new version of the song with a new music video with “Cool Kids (our version).”

Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio, photo by Dorothy Darr

Tuesday | 11.08
What: Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio feat. Gerald Clayton and Anthony Wilson
When: 6/7
Where: MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater 2644 W. 32nd Ave, Denver, CO 80211
Why: Charles Lloyd is a tenor saxophone and flute player and one of the few remaining legends of the age of jazz in which he performed with the likes of Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy and other leading talents of west coast jazz. He also formed his classic quintet in 1966 with Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett and Cecil McBee. Their 1966 live album Forest Flower is said to have built an audience among fans of rock, fans of jazz and the hippie counterculture that was on the ascent. Lloyd was also an early adopter of incorporating the music of various cultures beyond his own American context into his compositions. Lloyd is also one of the most prolific artists of his generation who has continued releasing albums through ECM and Blue Note including the 2022 twin albums Trio: Chapel and Trio: Ocean. His imaginative arrangements and creative performance style both elegant and forceful has kept his work vital and consistently worth a listen.

Tuesday | 11.08
What: Tegan and Sara w/Tomberlin
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Tegan and Sara Quin are twin sisters who formed their pop project Tegan and Sara in 1998 in Calgary. Multi-instrumentalists, the Quin sisters first started getting a name for themselves in underground music circles more widely with the release of the 2000 album The Business of Art. Warm vocal melodies, gentle yet exuberant energy and tender, declarative, observational song have been part of the Tegan and Sara sound since early on and even though they have refined their songwriting and performances and collaborated with numerous other musicians there is a comforting consistency in knowing that a new Tegan and Sara record will have some words of condolence, of emotional clarity and an articulation of struggle and finding the right tone of humor in unexpected situations. This is also true of their new album Crybaby which released a week after the October 14, 2022 premier of their TV series High School (based on their 2019 memoir of the same name) on Amazon Freevee. Of course the live show will feature the duo’s signature, highly engaging stage banter and commentary on the state of the world and sharing the bill for this night is experimental folk pop singer-songwriter Tomberlin whose 2022 album i don’t know who needs to hear this captured a relatable impulse to restlessness and personal set of songs the speak to a yearning for connection and tranquility in a particularly troubled time in human history.

Wednesday | 11.09
What: Meat Wave w/Moon Pussy and SPELLS
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Chicago’s Meat Wave in true tradition of that city’s underground music is difficult to define precisely. Fans of noise rock in the Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go vein will find much to like. There is a touch of the angular intensity of Shellac there and a melancholic desperation channeled into cathartic bursts of noise that dissolve and reform in raging passages. Its 2022 album Malign Hex not only has one of the best album titles of the year but imbued with a seething urgency balanced with a touch of near meditative atmospherics that break and dive off into unexpected directions. It sounds both conflicted and resigned and isn’t that one of the prevailing spirits of recent years with thwarted and then blunted frustrations waiting for release but let to hang and rot and transform into a mutant form of lingering neuroses that is still playing out in the culture. Meat Wave gives that decay and psychic poison a thrilling outlet. Denver pop punk band SPELLS may seem like the party group of every season but its own lyrics give form to an adult will to do something of significance only to find that the machine has you locked in for a mediocre fate so you decide to mock the situation and make the kind of music that rebels against being so unceremoniously shuffled off into the extra person column of modern civilization. Moon Pussy and its wiry and explosive dynamics takes the surreal absurdity of the life and world we have to contend with every day and transmutes it into an irresistible sonic release that every time makes you think maybe rock music isn’t dead after all.

Wednesday | 11.09
What: Slander: Thrive on the Rocks w/Virtual Riot, Moore Kismet, Leotrix and Saka
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Slander’s Thrive on the Rocks show will of course feature the well-known dubstep band. But get there early because Moore Kismet will have a set. Their 2022 album UNIVERSE is a deep dive into exploring the possibilities of modern electronic dance music production and songwriting. Where another artist might embrace a trope of the style of music, Kismet takes it somewhere else with an imaginative playfulness that draws you in with every track with its attention to every sonic detail culminating in tracks that are flowing with energy but soothing to the mind at once. Its a riveting mix that is innovative and arresting in unpredictable ways even if you’re a veteran of electronic music or don’t even really get it. With its supreme sound design and creativity UNIVERSE is worth a listen and Moore Kismet is a young artist who seems set on helping to change the world of electronic dance music for the better.

Thursday | 11.10
What: Militarie Gun w/MSPaint, Public Opinion and Dirt Sucker
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Militarie Gun is set to release the deluxe edition of its 2021 album All Roads Lead To The Gun on November 18. The Los Angeles-based hardcore band has those confrontational vocals but there’s something more arty about its guitar work and rhythms more like an old DC post-hardcore band of the 80s but more rooted in modern hardcore. Regardless of its actual roots it has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting bands out of the current wave of punk and hardcore. MSPaint from Hattiesburg, Mississippi sure seems to play some hardcore shows and the intensity of its performances are in that vein in terms of energy but its own music is a fusion of that spirit and bass and synth driven post-punk with songs that capture perfectly the fractured spirit of the American culture and consciousness. Its 2020 self-titled demo is truly one of the most original sounds coming out of the milieu of hardcore and the live show is a barn burner of inspiration and enthusiasm.

Hermanos Gutiérrez, photo by Larry Nlehues

Thursday | 11.10
What: Hermanos Gutiérrez
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Hermanos Gutiérrez is a two piece band comprised of brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez. It’s an instrumental project that fuses the traditions and influences of their Ecuadorian mother and Swiss father and the 2022 album El Bueno Y El Malo sounds like a hybrid of Santo & Johnny, Neil Young’s soundtrack work for Dead Man (1995) and a more modern form of pasillo. The introspective pastoral quality of the music is gorgeously tranquil but suggests long journeys and a searching spirit as each song explores nuances of mood and emotion while capturing a sense of place both physically and in the mind.

Friday | 11.11
What: Specter Poetics (Omaha goth pop), Jeff In Leather (Omaha techno pop), Hex Cassette, Pattern Screamers (angular new wave)
When: 7:30
Where: Jester’s Palace
Why: Denver Blood Cult presents a night of darkwave from Nebraska but also includes a performance from Denver confrontational industrial dance legend in the making Hex Cassette. His friendly cajoling of the audience from stage paired with music that is aimed at evoking a spirit of excitement in the face of a bevy of overwhelming challenges internal and external. Pattern Screamers might be described as an art punk band based purely on its 24-Hour Write-A-Record Challenge EP and the song “Grocery Store” and “Internet.” Specter Poetics bridges the worlds of synth-infused post-punk and dark New Wave revival. Jeff In Leather is more techno dream pop dance music style.

Saturday | 11.12
What: Mister Water Wet, M. Sage, snowfloer and Aspen Colorado
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Mister Water Wet is a Kansas City-based artist whose prepared environments and ambient drones found an especially evocative form on the 2022 album Significant Soil. M. Sage spent many years helping to keep Fort Collins weird with his experimental pop bands and his own tape collage style experiments in creating unique soundtracks to spaces of his own imagining. Aspen Colorado is a side project of performance artist/experimental modern classical/industrial darkwave artist Polly Urethane. Might be the only performance of Aspen Colorado and this is your chance to catch what will likely be an interesting showing of that. Snowfloer is Derrick Bozich’s solo project and you may know him as a guitarist in Sound of Ceres and formerly of Ancient Elk and Grease Pony among other projects more in the realm of indie rock.

Sunday | 11.13
What: Holy Fawn w/SOM and Grivo
When: 6:30
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Holy Fawn from Phoenix, Arizona is a four-piece that has been exploring and evolving a sound that brings together an introspective ethereal soundscape with a heaviness of mood that reflects a depth of feeling found on all of its recorded output. From its 2015 debut EP Realms to its 2022 album Dimensional Bleed one hears in the music of Holy Fawn expansive melodies and tonal brightness paired with a textural grittiness that feels like a cathartic and transcendent journey into deep emotional spaces. In that sound one hears echoes of obvious influences in realms of shoegaze, post-rock, black metal and the more atmospheric post-hardcore and emo with lush swarms of intricate guitar and intertwining rhythms. But there is also an element of musique concrète to the songwriting bringing in field recordings and tape collages to augment a sense of layered meaning and lending Dimensional Bleed in particular a cinematic quality that can create a rippling shift of sonic focus in every moment of a song. Without attachment to a specific style of music, Holy Fawn is able to deftly navigate and even embody multiple genres at once as suggested by the title of its new record. Also on the bill are two of the other current master practitioners of heavy atmospherics. SOM whose own 2022 album The Shape of Everything is brimming with uplifting and illuminating sonics and Grivo from Austin, Texas whose album Omit (also 2022) reveals a gift for shaping transporting drifts of luminously dense melodies.

Monday | 11.14
What: Exhumed w/Escuela Grind, Vitriol, Molde r
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Deathgrind legends Exhumed bring the tour in support of its new album To The Dead to Denver. Formed in 1990 when vocalist and guitarist Matt Harvey was fifteen years old, Exhumed has gone on to carve out its place in the canon of extreme metal. Its gory lyrics have always been a metaphor for consumerism and political issues and like a good horror movie provides an outlet to explore the horrible things humans do to each other in the name of a religion, a political affiliation, out of greed or any other unsavory motivation. To The Dead is another fine visceral litany of raging dismay in Exhume’s prolific catalog.

Monday | 11.14
What: Beth Orton w/Heather Woods Broderick
When: 7
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Some people may know Beth Orton for her unforgettable collaborations with legendary producer and electronic music artist William Orbit in particular “She Cries Your Name” and her contributions to Orbit’s song “Water From a Vine Leaf.” But Orton’s album under her own name have been eclectic and sonically rich including her 2022 album Weather Alive. Orton’s hushed, soulful vocals and ear for deeply evocative melodies and unconventional production has garnered her a bit of a cult following over the past three decades. But Weather Alive is a bit of an unexpected entry in her catalog as its attention to detail and the crafting of atmosphere and mood in the context of masterfully crafted songs makes it perhaps her finest offering to date.

Masma Dream World, photo courtesy the artist

Tuesday | 11.15
What: DUMA w/Masma Dream World, Knife Band and Watching People Drown
When: 7
Where: The Coast
Why: Masma Dream World is the solo project of multi-disciplinary artist Devi Mambouka that incorporates elements of Butoh, drone, theta frequency and ambient music. In 2020 the debut Masma Dream World album Play at Night but likely didn’t get a proper airing to a wide public because November 2020 was in one of the depths of the ongoing pandemic. The record is a mesmerizing listen that taps into parts of your brain that feel like a direct connection to the subconscious and one’s ancient ancestors. The use of percussion and unconventional tonalities and shamanic vocals creates a real moment throughout the recording as Mambouka makes sacred psychological space with the music opening a path to a mindset that exists outside the usual and unrelenting considerations of narrow materialism and demands on time at every moment from multiple sources. The music is a journey into a headspace that is always there for you to access but which can seem blocked from your conscious mind by habits of living that prioritize the needs of a corrosive economic system rather than what fortifies your life for real and that of everyone else and the rest of the world generally. It’s a therapeutic listen that exists outside the bounds of musical convention. DUMA (“Darkness” in Kikuyu) is a band that has emerged out of the underground metal scene in Nairobi, Kenya. Martin Khanja and Sam Karugu released their2020 self-titled debut during the height of the current pandemic and thus international touring has been all but impossible now. So fans had to give its harrowing and stark and frenetic soundscapes online or through purchasing a record from Nyege Nyege Tapes. The haunting and riveting soundscapes crafted by the two musicians is unlike most anything you’re likely to hear anywhere that is undeniably rooted in grindcore but also lo-fi industrial and imbued with a political awareness and existential angst that gives it a rare and very real edge.

Tuesday | 11.15
What: Brothertiger w/Neo Tokyo Philharmonic
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Oh the 2022 self-titled Brothertiger album John Jagos demonstrates what sounds like a great deal of growth as a songwriter. Certainly he has emerged from being one of the leading lights of chillwave in the late 2000s and 2010s having grown beyond the confines of that microgenre. During the early months of the pandemic Jagos acquired vintage samplers and synths manufactured by Ensoniq employed by sophisti-pop artists of the 80s influenced by the lush and dusky sounds of Roxy Music’s 1982 album Avalon. Think ABC, Level 42, Prefab Sprout and Spandau Ballet and Everything but the Girl. There’s a soulful quality to the collection of songs that hearkens back to a time when people were coping with dire international tensions and the looming threat of authoritarian domination but needing an escape into something that released some of that tension. There is a soothing quality to the album whose lyrics also seem to look to a near future where people are able to build a life and forge one without as much of the persistent oligarchic boot to the neck where anyone can take the time out to contemplate what to do with your ample leisure time. It’s not an album that ignores the current state of things but one that recognizes that sometimes we all need an interlude out of that pressure for a bit and the ability of music to provide that emotional space.

No Age at Glob on August 28, 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 11.16
What: No Age w/John Wiese and New Standards Men
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: No Age is a noise rock/art punk duo based in Los Angeles, California. Drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt and guitarist/vocalist Randy Randall had been in a band called Wives from 2001-2005 that had been a staple of the underground/DIY music world at the time. But Spunt and Randall scrapped the name and took their then musical ideas and recast their efforts as No Age with their first shows under the new moniker in early 2006 with their second show at the legendary DIY space The Smell in April of that year. From the beginning there was a refreshing lack of pretension and exuberance in the sound of No Age. Like a fusion of The Ramones at its most raw and the lo-fi experimentation and tape collage aesthetic of The Microphones. Within the often grainy and charmingly unvarnished early recordings one could hear a joyfulness and embrace of lived experiences that could contain and express a broad range of emotions and ideas in a manner often spirited and tender. There was always an element of vulnerability to No Age’s version of punk that transformed the music into something immediately accessible, like an unspoken invitation into a shared experience of thoughts and feelings it’s easy to think of going through alone and in isolation. No Age as artists and as a band have always approached its music and its operation as a band with a community spirit and that underlying ethos is something one an hear and feel in all of its albums and at its live performances. The group’s 2007 debut full length compilation of its early EPs and singles Weirdo Rippers (FatCat) is a fantastic introduction to the core No Age sound with a title that captures what you’re in for hearing, that is to say exciting music for people who embrace being different from mainstream expectation. From 2008-2013 No Age was signed to SubPop which helped to push the band to wider audiences. The most recent No Age album People Helping People (Drag City, 2022) is one of its most daring to date and bringing into the mix more fully the musique concrète element heard from its beginnings with gorgeously dream-like tape collages set alongside its signature vital rock songs. It may be the most fully realized No Age album to date and sonically among its most arresting. Opening the show are instrumental noise rock mutants New Standards Men who answer the question of what one might get if weirdos who were into Ruins, Talk Talk, Patrick Shiroishi, John Zorn and Tangerine Dream might do. Also noise legend John Wiese who has long been a part of the Southern California DIY underground.

Thursday | 11.17
What: Till The Teeth w/Pythian Whispers, Laudanum Quilt and Doc Box
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Till The Teeth is a Seattle based duo of Sandesh Nagaraj and Jonathan Rodriguez. Its releases thus far suggest a compositional style that employs techniques of soundscaping one most often associates with musique concrète, ambient, noise, prepared environment and ritual drone inspired in part by non-musical experiences, ideas and concepts whether cinematic, explorations of pure imagination or simply being struck by everyday occurrences and encounters. And the local openers come from a similar approach to making sound art. Laudanum Quilt whose prolific output for the last more than half a decade has put soundtracks to imagery, stories, quasi-mythologized personal experiences and the union of urban and rural environments. This author’s own project Pythian Whispers properly became a band when friends with a mutual interest in cinema, non-conventional music and other visual arts made music together and continued evolving beyond harsh ambient noise, experimental electronic music, drone and psychedelic abstract prog into whatever realms of sound came together through spontaneous improvisation.

Thursday | 11.17
What: Dead Boys w/The Briefs, Suzi Moon and Fast Eddy
When: 7
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Dead Boys are an influential early punk band from Cleveland, Ohio whose only constant member Cheetah Chrome was also in proto-punk band Rocket From the Tombs with Peter Laughner who also contributed to the early music of post-punk legends Pere Ubu. The band’s 1977 debut Young, Loud and Snotty with its ramshackle sound and raw and abrasive style proved influential on punk and glam metal going forward. The group’s volatile energy yielded one more album We Have Come For Your Children (1978) before the band broke up for what would have been good in 1980 with lead singer Stiv Bators going on to pioneer a kind of glam death rock with Lords of the New Church. With some brief reunions since then lead guitarist Cheetah Chrome put together a line up of Dead Boys in 2017 that has been touring the classic material on a semi-regular basis.

Drab Majesty in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.18
What: AFI w/Drab Majesty
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: AFI is one of the longest running bands out of the first wave of emo and one of the genre’s most inventive and stylistically versatile. Bridging the worlds of the kind of “horror punk” one associates with the sound of the Misfits, post-hardcore and gothic rock, AFI reintroduced an unabashed visual style for its live performances early on as opposed to the usual punk street clothes style favored by many if not most bands out of punk and emo. Altogether the musical and performance ideas have long helped AFI to stand out from the music scenes with which it has been most often associated. And certainly the choice of post-punk/dream pop duo Drab Majesty as an opener for this tour is an inspired one since the group’s fans seem open to AFI’s proclivity for making music with a similar appeal and presentation. Those unfamiliar with Drab Majesty, its darkly dream pop post-punk is like a more haunting take on the kind of experimental guitar rock of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and a darker and more gritty flavor of the similarly gossamer toned and emotionally charged sound one hears in Cocteau Twins.

Friday | 11.18
What: Turnover w/Yumi Zouma and Horse Jumper of Love
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Turnover has come a long way since its more pop punk roots as heard on its 2013 debut album Magnolia. Its 2022 release Myself in the Way comes across as a hybrid of dream pop and indie R&B with some synth pop style. Yumi Zouma is the indie pop band from Christchurch, New Zealand whose 2022 album Present Tense has a paradoxically hushed enthusiasm with delicate songs buoyed by an energetic spirit. Horsejumper of Love is a post-punk band from Boston whose albums have been lumped under the designation of slowcore. But anyone that has seen the band knows there is an understated intensity and darkness to its live performances like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the kind of brooding and visceral quality to be heard there.

The Legendary Pink Dots in 2022, photo courtesy Randall Frazier

Saturday | 11.19
What: Legendary Pink Dots w/Orbit Service and The Drood
When: 5
Where: Mercury Café
Why: The Legendary Pink Dots have left an indelible imprint on the worlds of psychedelic rock, post-punk, Gothic rock, the avant-garde, noise, ambient, industrial, synth pop and electronic music since its inception in1980. Fronted by Edward Ka-Spel, the Pink Dots have evolved through various lineups and shifting musical styles exploring musical and non-directly musical ideas for over four decades now leaving in the wake of that path of experimentation and rich a prolific body of work all worth a listen. From the late 80s through the early 90s there was a sea change in the band’s music as its membership expanded and its songwriting style shifted toward the kinds of lush atmospherics and dreamlike melodies and textures of 1990’s Crushed Velvet Apocalypse and even more fully on the 1991 album The Maria Dimension. That era of the band reached wider audiences and established The Legendary Pink Dots as a cult band with a wide international following from the alternative rock era to this day. Its enigmatic yet colorful and highly emotionally charged story songs provide a kind of parallel narrative to established cultural paradigms, sagely commenting on the prevailing culture in which we all live and which we all navigate and offering insight into civilizational themes and expressing deeply personal reactions to and thoughts on he lived human experience. The group’s highly imaginative and creative music never abstracts feelings but finds a way to make the complicated and difficult explicable. The live shows are a cathartic celebration of life and dreaming and seeking and finding deeper meaning set to sonically rich and transporting soundscapes. In 2022 the Pink Dots released its latest album The Museum of Human Happiness on Metropolis Records and following that, welcomed long time booster, publicist, tour manager and friend Randall Frazier of Denver space rock/ambient band Orbit Service into the current lineup alongside Ka-Spel, long time multi-instrumentalist Erik Drost and live engineer/producer Joep Hendrikx. Opening this show will be Frazier’s psychedelic ambient group Orbit Service and psychedelic, art rock, post-punk mystics The Drood.

Cheap Perfume performs on November 30 at Hi-Dive, photo circa 2016 by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.19
What: Riot Grrrl Party feat. Cheap Perfume, Tammy Shine
When: 6
Where: Mercury Café
Why: This is an event hosted by Gogo Germaine whose book Glory Guitars recently released to critical acclaim as the highly entertaining and touching memoir of a teenage punk. This event in addition to performances by the powerful, feminist punk band Cheap Perfume and the solo project of Dressy Bessy frontwoman Tammy Ealom as Tammy Shine there will be live burlesque with Becky Taha’Blu, Paloma Nectar, Siouxsie Cupcakes and Siren Sixxkiller, then readings by Gogo Germaine and Hillary Leftwich with Molina Speaks perhaps MCing the evening.

Dead Voices On Air in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 11.20
What: The Legendary Pink Dots w/Edward Ka-Spel (solo) ft. Tom Hagerman of DeVotchKa and Dead Voices on Air
When: 4
Where: Mercury Café
Why: See above for Legendary Pink Dots. But for this evening Ka-Spel will perform solo with contributions from Tom Hagerman of DeVotchKa and ambient music legend Mark Spybey of Zoviet France and his current project Dead Voices On Air.

Sunday | 11.20
What: Primo Premier Wrestling’s Emergence w/Wrestling Fiend: Arlo White and musical guest An Hobbes
When: 5:45/6
Where: The Roxy Theatre
Why: Arlo White has been involved in various ends of Denver music and art for decades with punk and art rock/concept bands like Dead Bubbles, Sparkle Jetts, The Buckingham Squares and others. He has also curated unique shows in a house space hosting the likes of Mercury Rev and Ken Stringfellow. Now White has assembled a performance as Wrestling Fiend. A lifelong fan of the gloriously absurd and dramatic art of professional wrestling and its stories and bombastic events, White reconnected with professional wrestling during the pandemic and found in it a path out of the stasis and despair of the current era. With his production company/media outlet Hypnotic Turtle he has teamed up with Colorado’s longest running independent wrestling promotion company Primos Premier Pro Wrestling. The show will feature pro wrestling, live painting and a musical performance from philosophical nerdcore rapper An Hobbes.

Sunday | 11.20
What: Arrows In Action w/TITUS and Lady Denim
When: 6:30
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: TITUS has found a way to combine hip-hop and pop punk in a way that draws upon the virtues of both forms of music to make something that might not work with another person’s songwriting. His infectious guitar hooks and emotionally raw and vulnerable lyrics that resonate with the heart on sleeve style of the best pop punk and emo bands of the turn of the century while also informed by the instinct for authenticity that is the backbone of any hip-hop worth your time. The result is a refreshingly sincere body of work thus far including his singles “Love Myself” and “SiCK ABOuT U” that seem to eschew bravado and embrace a sensitive spirit. Opening on this tour with Gainesville, Florida-based Arrows in Action and its likeminded fusion of pop rock and even more tender than usual emo seems like a solid pairing.

Monday | 11.21
What: Black Flag, TSOL, The Dickies, Total Chaos. https://theorientaltheater.com/event/396181/So-Cal-Punk-Invasion-Tour
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This tour includes some of the most influential bands out of the Southern California punk underground of the late 70s and early 80s with godfathers of hardcore, Black Flag whose current shows manage to remind one of the brilliantly creative guitar work and rhythms that long time band leader Greg Ginn helped to usher in to a punk world that was increasingly becoming more conformist. TSOL too switched up its own sounds across decades rather than stay stuck in a musical rut and at times embracing a dark, moody post-punk sound alongside its searing hardcore style. The Dickies are one of the longest continually running punk bands in existence starting in the banner year for punk of 1977 and with songs informed by a healthy and irreverent sense of humor while early on helping to establish a style of music that would become pop punk.

Monday | 11.21
What: The Garden w/Machine Girl
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Garden is a band formed by twin brothers Wyatt and Fletcher Shears and true to its name suggesting growth and evolution the group defies easy categorization. Sure you can see one of their exuberant live shows and hear the influence of pop punk, Green Day in particular, but its visual style is reminiscent of somehow both Suicidal Tendencies and that band’s own embrace of graffiti aesthetics and the kind of theatrical glam of Slipknot or more unlikely but possible Malfunktion, particularly on the singles for its 2022 album Horseshit on Route 66. But the music seems to dip into the realm of electronic music and art rock but thread that into its punk sensibilities completely for a sound that fits in with a modern disregard for narrow genre in songwriting. Which makes opener Machine Girl and its own industrial dance/glitchcore music and borderline unhinged performances seem like a natural choice and one for which its fans have been prepared with The Garden’s own evolution in daring new directions.

Tuesday | 11.22
What: Oruã, Laminate, Horse Bitch and Totem Pocket
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Oruã is a band from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that has for more than half a decade been crafting a particularly sonically dense blend of Krautrock, free jazz and Tropicalía. Its 2021 album Íngreme made more clear an incorporation of ideas from library music and indiepop. Also on the bill are Irish noise rock group Laminate, quirky, Denver-based pop punk indie folk mutants Horse Bitch and hazily atmospheric shoegaze group Totem Pocket.

Reverb and the Verse, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 11.23
What: Reverb and the Verse
When: 6-10
Where: Bonacquisti Wine Company
Why: Reverb and the Verse has been a staple of the more experimental edge of Denver hip-hop since the late 90s with its vital mix of socially and politically astute lyrics and masterful electronic soundscapes. Its 2022 album BLACKWALL is its final intended album and a barn burner of a record that fuses industrial beats with passionate vocals and expert production that gives the record the feel of something from the future commenting poignantly about the deeply conflicted and imperiled time in which we find ourselves. Think Moby and Nine Inch Nails collaborating with Chuck D for an album to be released on Warp Records.

Secret Shame, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 11.25
What: Secret Shame w/Verhoffst, Voight and ilind
When: 9
Where: The Crypt ($10)
Why: Secret Shame formed in Asheville, North Carolina in 2018. Its members came from the local punk scene and the music they made together was, summed up by a quote found on one or more of its online accounts, “too punk for Goth and too Goth for punk.” But however its sound might be best described its style of dark post-punk struck an immediate chord with people that got to see the fledgling band and even the debut basement demo from 2016 revealed a band that was tapping into emotional spaces resonant with Siouxsie and the Banshees and Xmal Deutschland. Its songwriting quickly developed into the songs that would comprise its energetic self-titled 2017 EP and the 2019 full-length debut album Dark Synthetics. In that vital mix of death rock and synth-infused post-punk one could hear an emotional vulnerability that told stories of struggle and abuse sometimes couched in terms of cosmic horror. And yet there was a core of honest feeling that bled through the metaphors and abstraction. For the 2022 album Autonomy, singer Lena had been working from a place of wanting to not obscure her lived experience and emotional truth and one hears that reflected directly in the music too. It’s still beautifully moody and moving but less haze and more direct tonal expression. Also in the new set of music are more conventionally accessible melodies without sacrificing the grit and darkness that has made the group’s songwriting so compelling since its inception. Autonomy is an album by a band that has come into its own while also a demonstration of an evolution from where it’s been and hinting at further exploration of where the music can go when you feel like you can craft your art from a deeply personal place without needing to couch it in the stylistic terms of anyone else or their narrow expectations. Opening is noise sculptor Verhoffs, techno DJ and avant-garde electronic music composer ilind and industrial post-punk shoegaze techno aspirers Voight. Listen to our interview with Secret Shame here.

Friday | 11.25
What: Emerald Siam, Jacket of Spiders, Juliet Mission and Shadows Tranquil
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Four of Denver’s best live rock bands on one bill doesn’t often happen but the day after Thanksgiving if you choose to show up to Enigma Bazaar you can witness the dark yet triumphant and emotionally expansive music of Emerald Siam, the blues edged, gritty art rock of Jacket of Spiders, Julie Mission’s perfection of transforming brooding shoegaze sounds into expressions of pure joy and Shadows Tranquil’s synthesis of math-y emo, shoegaze inflected metal and psyche cleansing, atmospheric post-punk. Sometimes for an all local bill you have to think maybe one or two of the bands are merely okay or there’s a clear headliner. But not for this show.

Saturday | 11.26
What: beabadoobee w/Lowertown
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Lowertown is an avant-pop duo based out of Atlanta. Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg met in math class in high school and bonded over a mutual and deep appreciation for jazz. Weinberg was a classical pianist with aims of going to the conservatory and Osby was a fledgling yet prolific poet. Before graduating in 2021 the two released the Honeycomb, Bedbug EP (2020) and the critically acclaimed The Gaping Mouth EP after high school in September 2021 having been picked up by the Dirty Hit imprint. Those EPs revealed a great deal of creative sophistication and development with songs that tapped into electronic music aesthetics, pop, angular post-punk, jazz and folk for a sound that feels intuitive in a way that speaks directly to the lived emotional experience in a way vulnerable and knowing and comfortable in not being so certain. The 2022 debut album I Love To Lie retains all the insightful introspection but the songwriting seems more straightforward and accessible and its content is the most clearly political and incisively observant. “Bucktooth” in particular addresses gun violence, political extremism and the seemingly everyday crisis mode that pervades not just American culture but the state of much of the world. It’s an album written from the perspective of youth and informed by an underlying hopefulness in the face of the dire possibilities and likelihoods and its catharsis of that anxiety is heartfelt and immediately striking. Filipino-British artist Beatrice Kristi Laus performs as beabdoobee and though only 22 has garnered a solid cult following for her early EPs released in 2018. Her breathy, expressive vocals are a compelling contrast with her expert crafting of lively, fuzzy guitar work and a seeming gift for delivering music with a raw spirit and a keen ear for creative melodies. Initially maybe her music seems completely beholden to 90s rock, especially on 2022 album Beatopia, but the sensibility has a touch of meta quality like Laus is soundtracking a 90s coming of age movie she has in her head infused with nosalgia, which fits in with the songwriter’s citing movie soundtracks as an influence on her own work and a desire to make music for films.

Seraphim Shock in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.26
What: Seraphim Shock 25th Anniversary w/Dead on a Sunday, Whorticulture and DJ Celebrytie and hosted by Sid Pink
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Seraphim Shock has been spinning its tales of the dark side of American society informed by themes of the occult, Satanism, hedonism and resistance to a puritanical culture that often causes the trauma and neuroses that drive dysfunction. Seraphim Shock’s music is an expression of solidarity with living with that legacy and purging it. It’s debut full length album Red Silk Vow released in 1997 to great local fanfare in the local Goth scene with shows in which lead singer Charles Edward garbed as a Victorian Vampire, top hat and all, orchestrated a stage show with bandmates in corpse paint style. Whether one was fully into the music or not the spectacle was undeniably compelling to the point where it helped to elevate the music in its Goth-industrial style. As the years went on the band’s style adopted a more glam metal sound and Edward more like a sinister yet benevolent professional wrestler look but more sculpted and more like a Goth super hero. This show celebrates the release of that first album and ushers in the next chapter of the band with its impending release of the second volume of The Fairmount Chronicles which launched in 2020. These days the stage show is back to being as theatrical as the early days with Edward exuding the undeniable charisma and commanding presence that has been a feature of the live show for decades. Also here for the proceedings is the classic Seraphim Shock MC, the sarcastic and sardonic MC Sid Pink so maybe we’ll also see a return of his irreverent game show, Think Pink.

Monday | 11.28
What: SRSQ w/Causer and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: SRSQ (pronounced “seer-skew”) is the solo project of former Them Are Us Too singer Kennedy Ashlyn. Her operatic vocals brought a good deal of emotional weight to the gorgeously ethereal guitar work of the late Cash Askew for a powerfully evocative combination. Her 2018 album Unreality was a tender and engulfing meditation on loss and grief cast in lush and hazy synths and soaring vocals. Her new album Ever Crashing is a statement of rediscovery of a firm sense of self with the usual elegantly evocative synth but including an expanded sound palette of guitar, string arrangements, live drums and other percussion alongside Ashlyn’s singularly expressive voice. People that got to see SRSQ during her time touring in the wake of the release of Unreality know that Ashlyn’s native charisma and emotional vibrance as a performer is undeniable.

Rosegarden Funeral Party in February 2020, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 11.29
What: Rosegarden Funeral Party w/Vio\ator and Faces Under the Mirror
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Rosegarden Funeral Party from Dallas, Texas has been blurring the line between shoegaze and post-punk since its inception. Frontperson/guitarist Leah Lane strikes a commanding figure while delivering impassioned vocals and atmospheric guitar wizardry while drummer Dylan Stamas triggers samples and orchestrates the sweeping rhythms with bassist Michael Doty, synthesist Michael Ortega layering the music with vividly cinematic melody. Lane helped to write and produce and perform on (as well as doing the artwork for) Vio\ator’s 2021 album Solitude and the broodily icy tones and gritty synth and bass driven music is the sound of an autumn spent in isolation. Faces Under The Mirror from Denver has been crafting some of the better EBM around since 1994 without much recognition beyond the Mile High City but whose moody yet energetic music is imbued with a sense of joy in the live setting.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver 3/12/20 – 3/18/20

RobynHitchcock_EmmaSwift1 — **Robyn Hitchcock performs at Swallow Hill on March 13, photo by Emma Swift**

Due to the Coronavirus-related cancellations we will include the shows we already had planned for coverage but indicate that they are cancelled as appropriate and as that information is available.

Thursday | March 12

Thundercat_Feb22_2017_TomMurphy — Thundercat circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Thundercat w/Guapdad 4000
When: Thursday, 3.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Stephen Lee Bruner, aka Thundercat, has been the go-to bass playing genius in the hip-hop world and beyond for over a decade including performing on albums by Kendrick Lamar, Erykah Badu, Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus. His own music is equally distinguished for its surreal creativity.

What: Harry Tuft and Brad Corrigan (of Dispatch)
When: Thursday, 3.12, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Swallow Hill Quinlan Cafe
Why: Harry Tuft was instrumental in cultivating and fostering the folk music scene in Denver through first the Denver Folklore Center and then through Swallow Hill. He is also one of the great interpreters of that music and a talented artist in his own right and this intimate show will be a good setting to catch him in action.

What: Dwight Yoakam w/Tennessee Jet
When: Thursday, 3.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom

What: Joe Sampson w/Ben Kronberg and Adam Baumeister
When: Thursday, 3.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

Friday | March 13

Mayhem_Jan20_2015_TomMurphy — Mayhem, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Cancelled The Decibel Magazine Tour: Mayhem and Abbath w/Gatecreeper and Idle Hands
When: Friday, 3.13, 6 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Mayhem is the legendary/notorious black metal band from Norway whose early history was the subject of the 2019 biopic Lords of Chaos. But the current band is equal parts occult rock theater and crushing black metal of devastating power.

What: Robyn Hitchcock
When: Friday, 3.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Daniels Hall at Swallow Hill
Why: Robyn Hitchcock first came to public attention as a member of post-punk band Soft Boys in the early 80s but later in the decade through to today he has established himself as one of the most consistently creative, thoughtful and wryly humorous songwriters of the modern era. With an eclectic songwriting style that weaves in elements of jangle rock (which he helped to pioneer) and psychedelia, Hitchcock’s observational story songs articulate vividly snapshots of the core human zeitgeist of the moment through his lens of an Englishman who has remained open to the world.

Why: Concert for Indigent Defense/Death Penalty Repeal Party: Tokyo Rodeo, Cyclo Sonic and The Slacks
When: Friday, 3.13, 9 p.m.
Where: Skylark Lounge
Why: Tokyo Rodeo is a rock band that by not tying its songwriting to a trendy aesthetic or some classic style has been able to cultivate its own voice in writing songs that delve into the personally meaningful in the musical language of a rock and roll universality. Cyclo-Sonic is a Denver punk super group with former members of Rok Tots, The Fluid, Frantix and The Choosey Mothers. But pedigree is not enough. Fortunately Cyclo-Sonic’s unvarnished rock theater and strong songwriting recommends itself.

What: Snakes w/Colfax Speed Queen and No Gossip in Braille
When: Friday, 3.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Snakes is a band that includes George Cessna as well as Brian Buck of High Plains Honky and Kim Baxter of several bands including Gun Street Ghost. Sharing the stage for this inaugural show is psychedelic garage rock powerhouse Colfax Speed Queen and the radically vulnerable post-punk stylings of No Gossip in Braille.

Saturday | March 14

NedGartheExplosion_May16_2014_TomMurphy — Ned Garthe Explosion circa 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Ladies Night, Ned Garthe Explosion, Slugger, Despair Jordan
When: Saturday, 3.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ned Garthe Explosion could have a career as a comedy band but its songwriting is too strong and clever for being a mere novelty act. Its nearly unhinged psychedelic rock is always surprisingly compelling. Slugger somehow managed to emerge over the last few years influenced by 70s rock and psychedelic garage rock without sounding like a rehash of a rehash, instead, vital and visceral.

Sunday | March 15

Ásgeir_AnnaMaggý1 — Ásgeir, photo by Anna Maggý

What: Bolonium, Damn Selene and Gort Vs. Goom
When: Sunday, 3.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bolonium is part weirdo pop band and game show including a section involving audience participation. Damn Selene’s mixes underground hip-hop, darkwave, noise and industrial music. Gort Vs. Goom is like if the Minutemen fully embraced prog rock and Blue Oyster Cult.

What: POSTPONED Ásgeir
When: Sunday, 3.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Ásgeir is an Icelandic songwriter whose blend of folk with electronic production has garnered him a bit of an audience in his home country and abroad. His falsetto combines a sense of intimacy and transcendence couched in transporting tones and grounding musical textures. Currently the artist is touring in support of his latest album Bury the Moon.

Monday | March 16

WaxLead_KristiFoxFräzier3 — Wax Lead, photo by Kristi Fox Fräzier

What: Cancelled Wax Lead, Vio\ator, Voices Under the Mirror and Voight
When: Monday, 3.16, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Minneapolis-based post-punk band Wax Lead brews its catharsis from lushly brooding female vocals and bass-driven minimalism and a willingness to pointedly tackle social and political issues. Also on the bill is the great, Denver-based industrial post-punk band Voight and one of the few good local EBM acts Voices Under the Mirror and its emotionally rich vocals and songwriting.

What: CANCELLED Destroyer w/Nap Eyes
When: Monday, 3.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

Tuesday | March 17

Kronos photographed in San Francisco, CA March 26, 2013©Jay Blakesberg — Kronos Quartet, photo by Jay Blakesberg

What: CANCELLED or POSTPONED Kronos Quartet
When: Tuesday, 3.17, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Newman Center
Why: Kronos Quartet has helped to make classical music cool and relevant since its founding in Seattle in 1973 through creative interpretation of foundational works and the contemporary avant-garde. The Quartet has also been known to indulge in fascinating covers of music in genres beyond its presumed wheelhouse as well as working with noted artists like Laurie Anderson and Pat Metheny.

What: POSTPONED Elohim
When: Tuesday, 3.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

What: Bear Hands and Irontom
When: Tuesday, 3.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Wednesday | March 18

Jonathan-Wilson-by-Louis-Rodiger-1 — Jonathan Wilson, photo by Louis Rodiger

What: CANCELLED Jonathan Wilson w/Other Worlds
When: Wednesday, 3.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jonathan Wilson (Erykah Badu, Father John Misty, Laura Marling etc.) brings a lot of skill, experience and talent to bear on his new album Dixie Blur which he didn’t record at his studio in Los Angeles, where he has produced plenty of high quality material, but in Nashville to be closer to his Southern roots as a musician who grew up in North Carolina. Whether setting matters much in an ultimate sense, the record and lead single “Oh Girl” is informed by a warmth and sensitivity that elevates songs that are already noteworthy for their diverse dynamics and broad palette of emotional coloring.

Best Shows in Denver 2/21/20 – 2/25/20

Chastity Belt performs at Bluebird Theater on February 23, photo by Beto Barkmo

Friday | February 21

Stonefield1 — Stonefield, photo courtesy the band

What: Kyle Emerson w/Turvy Organ, Panther Martin and Crystal Seth
When: Friday, 2.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kyle Emerson’s new album Only Coming Down is a thoughtful collection of songs written while the songwriter was splitting his time between his adopted home of Denver and Los Angeles. Emerson is from norther Ohio but moved to Denver in his late teens/early 20s where he fell in with an up and coming psychedelic pop band Plum which made waves before moving to the City of Angels and, as is often the cliché, broke up shortly thereafter. Since then Emerson moved back to the Mile High City where he established himself as a solo artist with the release of his sophisticated and introspective, folk inflected pop album Dorothy Alice. Tonight he shares the bill with stars of the local indie rock milieu in Turvy Organ and Panther Martin.

What: Stonefield w/Pink Fuzz, SSIIGGHH
When: Friday, 2.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Amy, Hannah, Holly and Sarah Findlay are four sisters that formed the hard psychedelic rock band Stonefiled in 2006 in Darraweit Guim in Victoria, Australia. Its early offerings (for example Through the Clover) were in the realm of 70s boogie rock with hints of the psychedelia that would characterize their later songwriting. By the time of 2019’s Bent, the group hasn’t shed its infectious tunefulness but its overall sound is much heavier, brimming with expertly sculpted melodic fuzz and at times bordering on a fusion of Krautrock and early 2000s stoner rock. Fans of Stereolab, Trans Am and Hawkwind will find a lot to like about this latest incarnation of the band’s evolution.

What: Jack Wright/Ben Wright+Michael O’Neill/Ryan Seward, New Standards Men, Ryan McRyhew and Chris Culhane
When: Friday, 2.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: A night of avant-garde jazz, improvisational experimental rock and analog synth composition.

What: Tonguebyte (EP release) w/Paul Maul, Cagemates and CFX Project
When: Friday, 2.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

Saturday | February 22

EzraFurman_JessicaLehrma2 — Ezra Furman, photo by Jessica Lehrman

What: Ezra Furman w/Kelley Stoltz
When: Saturday, 2.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Ezra Furman’s 2019 album Twelve Nudes is a lush yet somehow lo-fi collection of songs filled with raw emotion and experiences presented with a startling honesty couched in the sound of some 1960s girl group sound fused with fuzzy garage rock production. It’s a fascinating and bracing listen that gets past your filters before the impact of what you’re hearing hits you and the experience awakens you to the playful weightiness of Furman’s songwriting.

What: Shadows Tranquil, Emerald Siam, Midwife and Ophelia Drowning
When: Saturday, 2.22, 9 p.m.
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Dark, shoegaze-y post-punk band Shadows Tranquil performs this night with the brooding yet transcendent Emerald Siam, Midwife’s riveting, ethereal, tender, intimate soundscapes and Danish dungeon synth project Ophelia Drowning.

What: Kendra & The Bunnies
When: Saturday, 2.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Kendra & The Bunnies brings an unconventional and disarming creativity and sensitivity to a folk psychedelia that seems out of place and out of time. When so many modern indie bands are still mining Laurel Canyon, Kendra & The Bunnies tapped slightly into the vibe of Northern California hippies and made it their own.

What: Cyclo-Sonic, Joy Subtraction and The Pollution
When: Saturday, 2.22, 8 p.m.
Where: 1010 Workshop
Why: Cyclo-Sonic is comprised of veterans of Denver’s great second era of punk in the 80s with former members of The Fluid, The Frantix, Rok Tots and The Choosey Mothers. Which would mean not much if the band wasn’t any good but it turns out that the band’s leftfield reinterpretation of melodic proto-punk and garage is shockingly vital and compelling. Joy Subtraction came out of the more arty end of punk inspired by the likes of Alice Donut and Nomeansno. The Pollution is an unlikely merging of psychedelic prog and punk.

What: Bernstock 2020: Innerspace, False Report, Castele, Lungburn, Rotten Reputation and Wall of the Fallen
When: Saturday, 2.22, 5 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Local Denver punk and hardcore bands come together for a fundraiser to benefit the only candidate in the Democratic race to run against Trump that fully embraces a pro-working class agenda and grassroots democracy.

What: Bud Bronson & The Good Timers, Colfax Speed Queen and Pout House
When: Saturday, 2.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Sorted #12: Objekt and Pariah
When: Saturday, 2.22, 10 p.m.
Where: TBA

Sunday | February 23

What: Shibui Denver #10: Fern Roberts and Red Wing Black Bird
When: Sunday, 2.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This edition of Shibui Denver will feature darkwave project Red Wing Black Bird and the latest band from former Emerald Siam and Light Travels Faster bassist Todd Spriggs, Fern Roberts.

What: Chastity Belt w/Nanami Ozone and Hugh F
When: Sunday, 2.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Chastity Belt has been on a great run of seeming to reinvent its aesthetic over the past two or three records. Its 2019 self-titled record has seemingly shed whatever influences informed its earlier work in favor of a more introspective, dream pop-esque, borderline post-punk aesthetic but rooted in a sophisticated expression of emotional complexity, the kind that only comes with processing loss whether personally, or of one’s place in the world or of one’s community or feeling lost in a world where things seem upended and your place in it seems tentative. Who can say is the reason for this change but it is the group’s finest offering to date in its ability to evoke feelings that a more straight ahead rock and roll songwriting style struggles to articulate.

What: Kendra & The Bunnies
When: Sunday, 2.23, 4-6 p.m.
Where: The Very Nice Brewing Company in Nederland 4-6 p.m.

What: Standards, Floral, How to Think and Birdhouse View
When: Sunday, 2.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

What: Dweezil Zappa Hot Rats Live + Other Hot Stuff 1969
When: Sunday, 2.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre

Monday | February 24

What: Hannibal Buress w/Al Jackson and Tony Trimm
When: Monday, 2.24, 10”:15 p.m.
Where: Denver Comedy Works
Why: This is a free pop up comedy event featuring Hannibal Buress whose sharp, surreal comedy takes aim at the ridiculousness of modern life and odd ideas we all take for granted. He has also appeared in film and numerous television shows including brilliant turns on the Eric Andre Show and Broad City. For tickets signup/rsvp @ www.hannibalburess.com also text 312-584-5839 for a chance at tickets.

Tuesday | February 25

CEREMONY_RickRodney1 — Ceremony, photo by Rick Rodney

What: American Nightmare w/Ceremony
When: Tuesday, 2.25, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: American Nightmare is a legit hardcore band in the modern mold. Ceremony was right there with them, though having formed in 2006 during American Nightmare’s hiatus from 2004-2011. But around the time of Ceremony’s 2012 album Zoo its sound if not its raw, confrontational energy as a live band was changing. Hints of a shift from hardcore into something more experimental was all over that record and by the time of The L-Shaped Man from 2015, Ceremony was a post-punk band. Its latest album, In the Spirit World Now has expanded the use of synths in the band’s overall sound has morphed even further in the direction of dance-y darkwave like Devo if that band had somehow emerged following the post-punk revival of the late 90s and early 2000s.

Best Shows in Denver 01/03/20 – 01/07/20

EyeBeams_ItMeansTroubleCover_cropped — Eyebeams *It Means Trouble* cover. Eyebeams performs at Rhinoceropolis on January 4, 2020

Friday | January 3

RAREBYRDS_May31_2018_TomMurphy — R A R E B Y R D $, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Day of Jubilee: R A R E B Y R D $
When: Friday, 1.3, 6 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: Day of Jubilee is a First Friday event at The People’s Building in Aurora, Colorado. Tonight’s proceedings include live music at 7 p.m. with R A R E B Y R D $. R A R E B Y R D $ is a hip-hop group from Denver. Its two MCs, Key~Lady and KoKoLa, combine swagger and soul, inspiration and heartbreak into an alchemical musical experience. Their beats bring together gangsta rap’s mastery of bass sculpting, exploratory synth experiments and hazy, hypnotic drones with organic, Afro-Cuban rhythms. R A R E B Y R D $ ranges widely in the subject matter of its lyrics from the playfully earthy to the emotionally deep and transcendent but always with the spirit of inviting you into that private world with a welcoming emotional intimacy rare in a live performance.

What: Joshua Trinidad Trio (Joshua Trinidad, Joe Wirtz and Gordon Koch)
When: Friday, 1.3, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Spangalang Brewery
Why: Joshua Trinidad and his trio typically blast mind-altering free jazz with spirited play and great musical chemistry stirring the emotions to elevated levels.

What: Jacket of Spiders, Terminals, Lux Hearse, Denizens of the Deep
When: Friday, 1.3, 9 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap

Saturday | January 4

ChurchFire_Dec29_2019_TomMurphy — Church Fire (pictured: Shannon Webber), photo by Tom Murphy

What: Eyebeams album release w/96 Ponies, Vampire Squids From Hell and Slugger
When: Saturday, 1.4, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Eyebeams is releasing its second album It Means Trouble. The bright, languid psychedelia of the record ranges far from what we’ve come to expect from that loose genre of the past decade. It’s as though lead vocalist/guitarist Suzi Allegra absorbed all the influences that have manifested in recent music but long before when she was growing up and used it as a launching point into emotional outer space. The songs seem to explore issues of anxiety, fears, existential frustrations, feeling perpetually dreaming and wishing rather than doing and ending on a note of learning to calm the mind as a place from which to figure out what you really feel, what you really want and maybe how to actually get there.

What: Bands Against the Ban: Church Fire, Married a Dead Man, Hate Minor and Rebel Girl Productions
When: Saturday, 1.4, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Since members of the Senate are trying to have Roe Vs. Wade revisited with aims of overturning legal abortion in a country not actually founded by the Christian version of the Taliban, it will be necessary for people to voice their desire not to live in Medieval Europe again. And this show featuring some of Denver’s most interesting bands is a benefit in the struggle against the forces of reaction. This event is a benefit for Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado and was organized by Megan Kelley of darkwave band Married a Dead Man and David Pereira of noise rockers Hate Minor. Local experimental dance/darkwave band Church Fire will headline and embody a spirit of resistance with its own music and burlesque troupe Rebel Girl Productions will bring its own performance unique in that realm of expression as well.

What: Redivider album release w/Coastal Wives, Corsicana, False Report
When: Saturday, 1.4, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge

What: Helleborus w/Amdusias, Belhor and Throne
When: Saturday, 1.4, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

What: Dovekins reunion w/River Arkansas and Shenandoah Davis
When: Saturday, 1.4, 7 p.m.
Where: Mercury Café

Sunday | January 5

Sliver_Mar31_2019_TomMurphy — Sliver, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Caustic Soda, Feeling Old (WA), Broken Lawn Chairs and Sliver
When: Sunday, 1.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Sliver’s Chris Mercer wanted to revisit his folk punk roots “not shit like Andrew Jackson Jihad, Pat the Bunny or Camper Van Beethoven, the good shit like Days N’ Daze.” Fortunately his bandmates convinced him that playing with Boulder-based noise punk band Caustic Soda, folk-inflected indie rock punks Feeling Old from Seattle and Broken Lawn Chairs, an actual folk punk band, from Castle Rock. Sliver fortunately won’t torture us with Mercer’s idea of what “real” folk punk sounds like and might actually be enjoyable this time too.

Monday | January 6

Equine_Nov22_2017_TomMurphy — Equine, photo by Tom Murphy

What: lovelesslust w/Equine and Gila Teen
When: Monday, 1.6, 7 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: loveless lust is a mix of synth pop and industrial and thus a good fit with two bands from Denver that don’t fit neatly into any musical milieu either. Gila Teen is the hybrid sad boy post-punk/emo band we all need in the world right now.

What: The King Khan & BBQ Show w/Colfax Speed Queen
When: Monday, 1.6, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge.

Tuesday | January 7

KingKhan_byMironZownir — King Khan, photo by Miron Zownir

What: The King Khan & BBQ Show w/Colfax Speed Queen
When: Tuesday, 1.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: King Khan has been making psychedelic garage rock and evolving the art form since before it became hip again and again in the 2000s from back when he was a member of The Spaceshits in Kukamongas in the late 90s. With The King Khan & BBQ Show he and fellow Spaceshit Mark Sultan blended doo wop and garage punk and were in the same circles of likeminded acts Black Lips. Khan has also been involved in King Khan & The Shrines, but the BBQ show is like some late 60s psychedelic soul revue updated for the modern era. Denver-based Colfax Speed Queen will be a great pairing with its own electrifying live show of noisy psychedelic punk.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond 10/17/19 – 10/23/19

GuerillaToss_VanessaCastro — **Guerilla Toss performs at Hi-Dive on October 19, 2019, photo by Vanessa Castro**

Thursday | October 17

What: Sun Blood Stories, Space Jail, The Teeth of the Hydra and Prayer Hands
When: Thursday, 10.17, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Glitter City Studio
Why: Sun Blood Stories from Boise, Idaho, has been creating its experimental psychedelic music since 2011. Though the band emerged around the time when the most recent wave of psychedelic rock was headed toward its peak, Sun Blood Stories seemed to come from a different place. Its shows feel a bit like you’re seeing what a traveling, shamanistic musical ceremony might be like. Its songs, some rock, some weirdo folk, all informed by an attempt to create a mood and an experience as much as, or more so, than melody. The group is now touring in support of its 2019 album Haunt Yourself.

What: 303 Synth City: Patternshift, Malibu Nights, Niq V, Bob Sync
When: Thursday, 10.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Walnut Room

What: Brent Penny, Cuckoo, Shanea
When: Thursday, 10.17, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: False Report (EP release) w/In My Room, Pacific Nerve, Cagemates
When: Thursday, 10.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Friday | October 18

Temples_LauraAllardFleischl — Temples, photo by Laura Allard Fleischl

What: Temples w/Honey Harper
When: Friday, 10.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Temples from Kettering, England made big waves with its debut album Sun Structures at the apex of the neo-psychedelic era. But one thing that has set Temples apart from its peers is its mastery of layered dynamics like an orchestration of oil projections. The Krautrock-like rhythms, the sheets of luminous ethereal sounds, the haunted and the soaring vocals, guitars carrying both melody and texture shimmering throughout, Temples didn’t get stuck playing in an indie folk band that discovered weird pedals one day and jammed out to “Anemone” by the Brian Jonestown Massacre endlessly. Temples perfectly weds pop songcraft with mind-altering sound experiments. Its 2019 album, Hot Motion, finds the band exploring new vistas of evocative soundscaping mixing a palette of classic psychedelic era rock sounds and strong songwriting with modern sensibilities.

What: Riceboy Sleeps (Jónsi & Alex Somers) w/Wordless Orchestra
When: Friday, 10.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Most people probably know Jónsi as a member of Sigur Rós and thus no stranger to transcendent, orchestral music. With his partner Alex Somers he makes experimental ambient music and their latest album, their first with this project in a decade, is 2019’s Lost & Found. The show will be an evocative production with Wordless Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames with orchestra arrangements by David Handler. A mixture of classical, ambient and the avant-garde, the footage from this tour so far has shown a moving performance of uncommon grace and hushed intensity.

What: Hilary Leftwich book release of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock
When: Friday, 10.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Book Bar

What: Deep Club presents: Galcher Lustwerk w/WNGDU and Ponyrok
When: Friday, 10.18, 11 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Colfax Speed Queen album release of Dirty Mirror w/The Kinky Fingers, Savage Blush and Ladies Night
When: Friday, 10.18, 9 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

Saturday | October 19

AldousHarding_Jul27_2017_TomMurphy — Aldous Harding circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Aldous Harding w/Hand Habits (solo)
When: Saturday, 10.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Aldous Harding’s weirdo folk songs and compellingly eccentric performances is definitely for fans of Kate Bush and Joanna Newsom. Her 2019 album Designer is a showcase for her storytelling genius.

What: Guerilla Toss w/cindygod and Corner Girls
When: Saturday, 10.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A brilliant collision of dub, post-punk and psych-synth imbued disco, Guerilla Toss brings an upbeat yet surreal sensibility to its shows. It’s new record, What Would The Odd Do? released October 18 and this is more or less the band’s tour kickoff show.

What: Get Your Ears Swoll 11: The Vagrant Sea, Landgrabbers
When: Saturday, 10.19, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: The Vagrant Sea is a punk-inflected noise rock band or a noisy punk band. Either way its members are veterans of Denver’s underground rock scene including former members of The Symptoms, Dirty Lookers, Tarmints and many others. Landgrabbers is a honky tonk punk band with emphasis on the latter. At a time when most punks are aiming for a niche subgenre, Landgrabbers refreshingly focus on writing solid songs and leave the fashion show, sonically and otherwise, to those more inclined.

What: The Distillers w/Death Valley Girls
When: Saturday, 10.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The Distillers’ brash punk rock burned bright and flamed out between starting in 1998 and breaking up in 2006 leaving behind a few records of songs about raging against feeling like being kicked to the bottom rung but making that kind of scrappy underdog status seem glorious. Singer Brody Dalle cut a commanding figure and after the band split she spent some time writing music in Spinnerette and under her own name. But as of 2018, The Distillers are back together at a time when maybe its ferocious performances with snotty yet tuneful songs will find a wider audience hungry for something that vital. Also on the bill is Death Valley Girls whose inspirationally bizarre blend of surf rock, post-punk and psychedelia is truly born of an individual collective imagination channeled into spirited performances.

What: Clay Rendering, Weathered Statues, French Kettle Station, Prison Glue
When: Saturday, 10.19, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Clay Rendering is often called a mix of dream pop and black metal and that’s fair enough but it might also be considered a rebirth of synth infused death rock. Its 2019 album California Black Vows sounds like what Iceage might have sounded like if it went more darkwave and less in the direction of The Bad Seeds.

What: Jonathan Richman w/Tommy Larkins
When: Saturday, 10.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Daniels Hall at Swallow Hill
Why: Because Jonathan Richman is the godfather of twee pop and radical sincerity in vulnerability in rock music. And he hasn’t exactly toned down that approach as a performer in nearly fifty years. He’s a national treasure.

Sunday | October 21

voight_oct13_2018_tommurphy — Voight, photo by Tom Murphy

What: All Your Sisters, Weaken, Voight and Fatal Fantasy (DJ)
When: Sunday, 10.20, 8 p.m.
Where: The Zodiac (Colorado Springs)
Why: All Your Sisters from Los Angeles and Denver’s Echo Beds (playing the Monday show in Denver at Rhinoceropolis) are headed out on a tour to the East Coast. The former released the album Trust Ruins in April 2019 and re-established itself as practitioners of harrowing, industrial death disco. Voight are a jagged machine of sound and sometimes convulsive, sometimes broodily intense sounds that erupt with a barrage of cathartic energy to purge the dulling effects of late capitalism.

What: The Japanese House w/Overcoats
When: Sunday, 10.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre

What: Haunter, Noctambulist, Casket Huffer, Zygrot
When: Sunday, 10.20, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Sick Of It All and Take Offense
When: Sunday, 10.20, 6 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall

What: Black Lips w/Blue Rose Rounders and Backseat Vinyl
When: Sunday, 10.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge

Monday | October 21

AllYourSisters_Dec11_2016_TomMurphy — All Your Sisters circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

What: All Your Sisters w/Echo Beds, Midwife and B|_ank
When: Monday, 10.21, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: For All Your Sisters see above on October 20. Echo Beds is an alchemical combination of stark hardcore aesthetics and organic industrial post-punk.

What: Whitney w/Lala Lala
When: Monday, 10.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Whitney’s debut album Light Upon the Lake (2016) benefited from both hitting a trend early of the sort of Laurel Canyon, countrified psychedelic pop embraced in the American underground and from its exquisite arrangements and ear for dynamics in a way that has been missing from far too much modern pop music. The follow-up album, 2019’s Forever Turned Around is a tender and sensitive meditation on the fear and confusion hanging in the collective psyche of late complicated by issues of addictions of various kinds, a heavier than expected set of subjects from music that sounds so spacious and heavenly.

What: J.S. Ondara w/Elise Davis
When: Monday, 10.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

What: Black Lips w/Blue Rose Rounders and The Corner Girls
When: Monday, 10.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Tuesday | October 22

ChelseaWolfe_BenChisholm — Chelsea Wolfe, photo by Ben Chisholm

What: Chelsea Wolfe w/Ioanna Gika
When: Tuesday, 10.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Stanley Hotel
Why: What could be more perfect than the haunting intensity of Chelsea Wolfe’s songs, performed acoustically as is the style of at least one of her albums, at the haunted Stanley Hotel in advance of Halloween? Wolfe recently released her new album Birth of Violence which features some of her more acoustic songwriting than the heavy drones and atmospheric black metal of her last few offerings. It showcases a more intimate side of Wolfe’s deeply personal storytelling rather than the nightmarish visions with which you might be more familiar with the artist and a testament to her enduring talent.

TheKVB_GeorgeKatsanakis — The KVB, photo by George Katsanakis

What: The KVB w/Numb.er and Eventually It Will Kill You
When: Tuesday, 10.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: The KVB’s synth-driven post-punk is reminiscent of Fad Gadget’s dark avant-pop with its distorted, urgent soundscapes and brooding, introspective vocals. Currently touring in support of its 2019 album Submersion.

john_paul_white_AlysseGafkjen — John Paul White, photo by Alysse Gafkjen

What: Shovels & Rope w/John Paul White (of The Civil Wars)
When: Tuesday, 10.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: John Paul White one half of bluesy Americana duo The Civil Wars with Joy Williams. In 2019 he released his third solo album The Hurting Kind. Its flavor is a little more introspective than some of his previous work with The Civil Wars. But the level of detail and warmth of tone is there. Apparently he was inspired by the almost orchestral production and songwriting of early 60s Nashville acts and he brings that sensibility to this new batch of songs by taking his gift for turning simple and spare elements into a lush sound that touches on fine emotional notes. Exquisitely crafted songs by one of America’s premier songwriters. Shovels & Rope is the alternative country band from Charleston, South Carolina comprised of Cary Ann Hearst and former Denverite, and former Tinker’s Punishment frontman, Michael Trent.

What: Mating Ritual, Hembree, Compass & Cavern
When: Tuesday, 10.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Wednesday | October 23

mxmtoon_NicoleBusch — mxmtoon, photo by Nicole Busch

What: mxmtoon w/Alexander 23
When: Wednesday, 10.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: mxmtoon went from bedroom pop musician to international renown from 2017 to 2019 initially releasing more humorous songs and moving on to more sincere expressions of feeling. Her 2018 debut EP plum blossom garnered her critical acclaim for her finely composed pop songs that feel spontaneous and insouciant. Through social media and other internet outlets like TikTok, Vine, Snapchat, Soundcloud, mxmtoon, or Maia, has made comedic videos and shared her work connecting with hundreds of thousands of fans. In 2019 she released her debut full-length, self-released, the masquerade. There’s something lighthearted but genuine about her songs and her intuitive knack for an earworm melody and wordplay is consistently impressive.

What: Free Music, Koto Robo, Cop Circles album release, French Kettle Station, J. Hamilton Isaacs
When: Wednesday, 10.23, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Cop Circles is the weirdo afrobeat/avant-garde jazz influenced project of one Luke Leavitt. He is releasing his latest album Penultimate Conclusions at this show. Also on the bill is eccentrically brilliant experimental pop project Free Music from Minneapolis, the relentless and inspired adult contemporary/glitch/synth pop hybrid of French Kettle Station, J. Hamilton Isaacs’ transporting modular synth compositions and Koto Robo’s synthesis of 80s video game sounds (though not 8-bit) and synth pop.

What: Agnostic Front w/The New Narrative, Clusterfux and Out For Blood
When: Wednesday, 10.23, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater

What: Girlpool, American Grandma and Bellhoss
When: Wednesday, 10.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Best Shows in Denver 6/27/19 – 7/3/19

Earth3_crop — **Earth performs June 27 at The Marquis Theater, photo courtesy the artist**

Thursday | June 27

Zealot_Jan12_2019_TomMurphy_sm — Zealot, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Earth w/Helms Alee
When: Thursday, 06.27, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Earth is as much an influential and pioneering drone metal band as it is an avant-garde blues folk group imbued with mystical overtones. It’s 2019 album Full Upon Her Burning Lips finds the trio channeling more than the usual measure of its crawling, Black Sabbath-esque gloom. Seeing the live show it’s always fascinating to see how Adrienne Davies moves in an orchestrated string of slow sweeping moves and fast, accenting flourishes as Dylan Carlson and their collaborators of the moment drone with a smoky fluidity.

What: Meet the Giant, The Jinjas, Monty O’Blivion and Zealot
When: Thursday, 06.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery
Why: Zealot would be a Mountain Goats cover band but Luke Hunter James-Erickson would find that too rote so he injects his own eclectic tastes into the songwriting. Recently released the “Snake Goddess” single, a typically eccentric, high energy, angular indie rock gem. Meet the Giant, informed by electronic music and hip-hop beat-making, write and perform deeply evocative, brooding rock songs that maybe now would overlap with the whole darkwave thing except that Meet the Giant often crosses over into the realm of hard rock in a way most of those bands don’t.

What: Cholo Goth Night featuring Dave Parley of Prayers
When: Thursday, 06.27, 9 p.m.
Where: Streets Denver
Why: Just like it says, Cholo Goth Night at Streets Denver with Dave Parley of Cholo Goth and spinning Darkwave and Goth for the evening. When this event happens in the Los Angeles area and select other cities Parley brings in other darkwave musicians of note to guest a set but not for tonight.

Friday | June 28

Blue-October_Chris-Barber_lg — Blue October, photo by Chris Barber

What: The Kinky Fingers w/Vic N’ the Narwhals and Colfax Speed Queen
When: Friday, 06.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Now that the Denver “party rock” scene has withered away and garage psych/surf is going the way of pop punk in the early 2000s only the strong and more interesting survive. In the case of these three bands it’s partly because their songwriting was always good and their individual sounds not so susceptible to the blowout of trendiness. Each has also evolved.

What: Tyto Alba and Steele Douglas
When: Friday, 06.28, 5 p.m.
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
Why: Tyto Alba is always surprisingly evocative with music coming from the tender places of the psyche and coloring the tones in warm, incandescent tones and hypnotic rhythms. Seeing them on a rooftop while a thunderstorm threatens to hover in but never does? Seems symbolic and entirely appropriate.

What: Blue October w/Mona
When: Friday, 06.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Blue October has been around for nearly a quarter of a century now and its career has crossed over from the old way of major labels and the album release cycle to the modern mess and disarray of the industry now that offers bands to connect directly to an audience more so than ever before but to earn far less for their efforts. That the group has weathered that period is impressive itself. Oddly enough its own style of power pop seemingly inspired by late 80s proto-alternative rock like Icehouse and The Outfield and their dramatic presentation of being a bit on the outs of true emotional fulfillment but yearning for that special connection with another human with music that is a little too triumphant in tone and uplifting to be sad bastard music. But Blue October didn’t stay trapped in a past style and its newer music reflects a diversity of newer influences.

What: Primal Birth: Hotpiss, Drume, Eyeface, Padfut, Worldwide Dungeon, DJ 7 Heads
When: Friday, 06.28, 10 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: A bit of a weirdo underground techno show that starts late and goes late like a rave.

Saturday | June 29

PUP_Vanessa1Heins1 — PUP, photo by Vanessa Heins

What: Westword Music Showcase
When: Saturday, 06.29, 12 p.m.
Where: Golden Triangle Neighborhood
Why: This is the longest running music festival of its type in Denver. Held on just one day in the Golden Triangle neighborhood near the Westword offices off Tenth Ave and Broadway, it is arguably the most concise way all year to see a broad spectrum of the local scene without having to walk too far. This year’s line-up includes several of the local luminaries. Here is a list of see-if-you-can acts at each of the stages and a given set time. Tastes will vary and I’m certainly no expert on big chunks of the local music world.

Breckenridge Brewery Stage
12:25 YaSi
6:10 Jai Wolf

White Claw Stage
7:20 CHVRCHES

Vinyl Main
12:50 Techno Allah
2:30 Erin Stereo

#vybe
12:50 Venus Cruz
6:40 Lady Gang
7:30 RARE BYRD$

Stoney’s Main
12:35 Gora Gora Orkestar
5:35 Wes Watkins
7:15 Roka Hueka
8:05 Los Mocochetes

Bar Standard
12:50 Hail Satan
2:30 Ghosts of Glaciers
5:50 Fathers
6:40 Plasma Canvas
7:30 Cheap Perfume

Temple/Mirus Gallery
3:20 Starjammer

Stoney’s South
1:40 Brianna Straut
2:30 Bevin Luna
5:50 Florea

The Church
12:00 eHpH
2:30 Ramakhandra
5 Vic n’ the Narwhals
5:50 Spirettes
6:40 The Hollow

100% Agave
1:40 Bret Sexton
5:50 Los Dog Ensemble
6:40 The Maybe So’s
7:30 Joshua Trinidad Trio

What: PUP w/Ratboys and Beach Bunny
When: Saturday, 06.29, 9 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: PUP started making waves a handful of years ago outside its hometown of Toronto, Ontario among aficionados of pop punk and emo who missed that brashly confessional style of songwriting before the music hit maximum saturation level in the early-to-mid 2000s. When the band began in 2010 a quasi-movement was under way across the North American continent in making fun, melodic punk that was raw and expressive. With PUP and others the key difference was embracing the relatively unrefined side of that songwriting and how that opened possibilities for the music to go where it will rather than fall directly in a worn out style. This has given PUP’s songwriting a freshness that even if at first it seems completely within the realm of standard pop punk. Its new record, 2019’s Morbid Stuff, arguably its best to date, revealed the influence of the more vital garage punk and 2000s lo-fi noise rock on its sound. Like the Reatards and perhaps No Age. Its irreverent spirit and deft local cultural references that are relatable to people who experience similar social phenomena in their own cities makes for a consistently endearing listen.

What: Luxury Hearse, Timelord SFX and blank human
When: Saturday, 06.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap
Why: Luxury Hearse combines the forces of blank human’s ambient/noise sound sculpting and Psychic Secretary’s beat-driven experimental electronic music. What to call it? Some might think industrial because of its sometimes sharp edges but it’s more in the vein of edgier yet dream-like dance music.

What: 5th Annual Colorado Goth Fest: Suicide Commando and Læther Strip w/Offerings to Odin, The Union, The Midnight Marionettes, eHpH and WitchHands
When: Saturday, 06.29, 6 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: This edition of the Colorado Goth Fest features headliners who are significant and one might say pioneering artists in the realm of EBM with Suicide Commando and Læther Strip. The local acts are a fairly diverse group as well including death rock band WitchHands from Colorado Springs and Denver’s own EBM/electro-post-punk duo eHpH.

What: Blue October w/Mona ogdentheatre.com/events/detail/369899
When: Saturday, 06.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: For Blue October see above for 6.28.

Monday | July 1

CultureAbuse_Jun15_2018_TomMurphy — Culture Abuse circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Culture Abuse w/Tony Molina, Young Guy, Dare, Regional Justice Center and Cadaver Dog
When: Monday, 07.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Culture Abuse has big melodic hooks for a band that came up through the milieu of garage punk. It’s 2018 album Bay Dream greatly expanded its range as a band both tonally, dynamically and emotionally as it’s informed by a sensitivity to the inevitability of the death of those close to you and a wry sense of humor and irony. After all Culture Abuse has a song called “Dave’s Not Here (I Got The Stuff Man)” referencing the classic Cheech & Chong skit. While there’s plenty of wiry punk energy behind the material, especially live, it’s really more of a great power pop record. Tony Molina got started in music playing in hardcore bands but his solo work is more in line with jangle pop and C86 with a sprinkling of The Byrds. His own 2018 record Kill the Lights wouldn’t have been out of place in the same musical realm as Teenage Fanclub circa 1992. Except with more folk-inflected, introspective songwriting throughout.

What: Muscle Beach, Buildings (MN) and Simulators
When: Monday, 07.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Streets Denver
Why: Buildings form Minneapolis is a vital cross between a math-y noise rock and post-hardcore. Muscle Beach is of similar mind but its own version of post-hardcore is a splintery assault on the senses that drags you down emotional pathways that purge angst and personal darkness – all done with a cathartic sense of joy. Simulators are an angular noise rock duo whose music is both cutting and unhinged yet mathematically precise. It’s always an interesting contrast.

Wednesday | July 3

TotalTrash_Mar31_2019_TomMurphy2 — Total Trash, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Bud Bronson + the Good Timers, The Right Here, Bad Licks, DJ Sara Splatter
When: Wednesday, 07.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bud Bronson + The Good Timers are always surprisingly good. Its earnest power pop sounds like it’s of today but has a quality and a vibe that is reminiscent of the stories and sentiments one heard in the music of late 70s/early 80s Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Also on the bill is Bad Licks who somehow do a kind of psychedelic blues rock that is legitimate and high energy because good songwriting transcends pre-conceptions.

What: Weird Wednesdayl: Total Trash, Pretty Loud, Klaus Dafoe
When: Wednesday, 07.01, 9 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl
Why: Total Trash is a band comprised of luminaries of Denver’s indie rock scene going back nearly two decades and yet it’s not all middle aged people. If you remember Fissure Mystic, Fingers of the Sun and Lil’ Slugger, it’s people from those bands. It’s psychedelic, shoegaze-y jangle pop is transporting yet relatable and down to earth. Klaus Dafoe is an instrumental band that collides together 2000s math rock, weirdo punk and indie pop for a sound that is familiar yet unusual.

What: Pale Sun, Palehorse/Palerider, Random Temple and Grass
When: Wednesday, 07.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Palehorse/Palerider’s drummer Nathan Marcy said to bring earplugs. Good idea, because his own group is the kind of doom/shoegaze/dark desert psych band that makes beautifully dark, atmospheric, consciousness expanding music with ritual/tribal flourishes that is, yes, in fact, quite loud. In good company with gritty psych band Grass and Pale Sun. The latter’s dreamy yet dense rock music will take you to a different psychological space than the one with which you walked into the show. Includes former members of Bright Channel, Space Team Electra and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake.

Best Shows in Denver 12/20/18 – 12/23/18

Sliver_Dec15_2018_TomMurphy2 — Sliver performs Friday, December 21, at The Marquis Theater

Thursday | December 20, 2018

CheapPerfume_Nov13_2016_TomMurphy — Cheap Perfume circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Wild Lives w/Cheap Perfume, Bad Year and An Antiquated Bluff
When: Thursday, 12.20, 7 p.m
Where: Lost Lake
Why: It’s all rock bands of one stripe or another but at least it’s not all the same kind of rock band. Wild Lives is more of a straight-ahead rockist punk band and one that doesn’t mince words about where its political sentiments lie. It’s charming single “Fuck Sheriff Joe Arpaio” is up there with “Westboro Baptist Church” by I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House and that’s no faint praise. Cheap Perfume is also deft at such articulation of modern, principled, but not uselessly polite, outrage. For example “It’s Okay (To Punch Nazis)” in the wake of, well, the “Greatest Generation’s” sacrifices be damned, the re-rise of fascist types in the USA and elsewhere. Bad Year is the local equivalent of a pop punk supergroup including former Pin Downs guitarist and Denver scene veteran extraordinaire Sara Fischer and Chuck Coffey of SPELLS guitarist/former member of Mail Order Children, Call Sign Cobra and more bands than most other people might join. And An Antiquated Bluff, the solo project of Josie Cool who has also spent time in multiple noteworthy punk and post-hardcore bands as well as a stint in experimental rock band Teacup Gorilla. Is Josie is doing the songwriting it’s always worth your time.

Who: Television Generation, Mr. Atomic, The Rainbow Treatment
When: Monday, 12.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Oh sure 90s has reincarnated in the 2010s in various places but that seems less strange than the recent embrace of 60s and 70s music. At any rate, in Denver two of the best are Television Generation and Mr. Atomic. Both fuzzy, both tapping into grunge but in the case of TG, it’s in the context of well-crafted pop songs melded with a genuinely thorny angst and expunging of generational despair. Which we’ve not had enough of in such bracing doses in recent years. Mr. Atomic is able to summon similarly emotionally rich realms of sound but it’s songwriting bears signs of being influenced by the likes of Weezer and 90s pop punk before it departed nearly forever into wackdom by the turn of the century.

Friday | December 21, 2018

DeathInSpace_Jun14_2018_TomMurphy — Death in Space, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Equine, Evil Ear (IL), Death in Space, Felony Charge
When: Friday, 12.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery
Why: This a show that’s mostly ambient and avant-garde guitar drones. Equine is former Motheater and Epileptinomicon guitarist Kevin Richards’ solo guitar and electronics project wherein he explores various aspects of soundscaping and composition. Evil Ear is chill electronic soundscapes and sonic textures in the context of what sounds like loop manipulation. Death in Space is…supposedly quite different from the rest of her musical career in which Aleeya Wilson uses guitar and loops to make an abstract kind of punk and experimental guitar rock and noise. If her all synth project Spargob is any analog it’ll be interesting either way. Felony Charge sounds like a weirder kind of deathgrind band.

Who: Sliver w/Stereoshifter, AFD (Amazing Flying Dumbasses), Swamp Rats and Bert Olsen
When: Friday, 12.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: This is a donation based show to benefit Sox Place and Urban Peak, two non-profits that aid homeless youth. For the bill, Chris Mercer of punk/grunge-esque band Sliver brought together other artists who feel as strongly as he does about homelessness in our community. Mercer himself spent some time homeless and has a direct experience of what might actually help homeless young people and the homeless in general not just out of that experience but also in getting out of homelessness with humanity compassion and understanding. Fortunately, the bill is a great cross-section of the better punk and rock acts in Denver out of the underground playing a more commercial venue with a robust sound system so yes, a benefit show, but one that one would want to go to in order to experience some of the best bands Denver has to offer.

Who: Jade Cicada and Detox Unit w/Craftal, Schmoop, visuals from Steven Haman and B1n4ry
When: Friday, 12.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Jade Cicada aka Skyler Golden is performing this event alongside Detox Unit. Both artists are very much of the moment in terms of more experimental electronic dance music with some of the affectations one might expect from someone who had eclectic tastes and musical instincts developing out of that scene in the 2000 and 2010s. But one also hears elements of UK garage and the sample-based composition of underground hip-hop artists and the like from the late 90s and early 2000s. As with the latter, the free association use of bits of music to create new emotional resonances in the recontexualization of the familiar alongside original content.

Saturday | December 22, 2018

TelefonTelAviv_perArtistWeb — Telefon Tel Aviv, photo courtesy artist’s management

Who: Telefon Tel Aviv w/GILA and Stratusphere
When: Saturday, 12.22, 9 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Joshua Eustis probably plays to much larger audiences as a contributor to the live versions of Puscifer and Nine Inch Nails. But with Telefon Tel Aviv, which he formed in 1999 with the late Charles Cooper, Eustis has been making some of the more fascinatingly detailed and textured IDM of the past twenty years. Eustis hasn’t released a full album since 2009’s Immolate Yourself, which predated Cooper’s untimely death that January, but his multiple collaborations and remixes since that time are noteworthy as they are sparse including wortk with Lusine, Vatican Shadow, SONOIO and These Hidden Hands. As Eustis, he’s had a role in the 2013 Nine Inch Nails album Hesitation Marks and The Black Queen’s 2016 album Fever Daydream. But for this show you’ll get to see the brilliant kind of minimalist techno/IDM that helped establish him as an artist of note.

Who: Barf Fest III: RL Cole & The Hell You Say, Fast Eddy, Love Gang, Colfax Speed Queen, Palo Santo, Mike Rose & The Early Mornings
When: Saturday, 12.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Barf magazine is an irregularly released publication that showcases what some might see as low culture aesthetics in Denver but done with such humor, care and consideration for the underground music and art scene in Denver that it could never be dismissed. This third festival showcasing the kinds of bands from the realms of local psychedelic garage rock and blues is easily one of the best slices of that side of the Denver scene that has happened all year.

Sunday | December 23, 2018

Faceman_Aug24_2013_TomMurphy — Faceman circa 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Faceman’s Parade of Lights feat. Tivoli Club Brass Band and Sirens of the North
When: Sunday, 12.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Steve “Faceman” can be relied upon to come up with a ridiculous yet beautiful concept for a show on the regular. Someone should catalog all the creative ideas, sculptures and sets, and the unlikely legit execution of his ideas someday in a book. Like the 100 Year Storm show of 2016 in which he brought in some 100 bands to play the Oriental Theater in early November of that year. Difficult to say exactly what will make up his own version of The Parade of Lights so best to see for yourself. Whatever the exact concept it will be entertaining.